Appeal No. 2005-0823
Application No. 10/300,895 Page 5
of claims 64, 72, 80, 88, 96, 104, 112 and 120 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being indefinite (Group 1).
Claims are considered to be definite, as required by the
second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112, when they define the metes
and bounds of a claimed invention with a reasonable degree of
precision and particularity. See In re Venezia, 530 F.2d 956,
958, 189 USPQ 149, 151 (CCPA 1976).
The examiner's position (answer, page 3) is that the claims
use the trademark/trade name ARC. The examiner asserts (id.)
that the scope of the claims is uncertain because a trademark or
trade name is used to identify the source of goods, not the goods
themselves, and (answer, page 4) "because of the dynamic nature
of corporations, in that their names and composition can change
over time."
Appellant's position (brief, page 8) is that “[t]he Examiner
provides no evidence that one of skill in this art would not
fully understand the recitation of ‘reporting the issuance to
Airline Reporting Corporation’ or the scope of the rejected
claims.” It is argued (reply brief, page 3) that the claims do
not use "ARC" in the trademark sense to identify goods or
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