Appeal No. 2005-2211 Παγε 8
Application No. 10/715,002
The examiner's assessment of how the resultant impact forces will direct the
person impacted by the bumper appears quite reasonable on its face to us and
appellant has not offered any evidence or cogent reasoning to the contrary.
Accordingly, based on the record in this case, we conclude that appellant's description
and explanation of the disclosed bumper system and method is not sufficient to
adequately justify the result recited in the afore-mentioned "whereby ..." clause of claim
15, thereby rendering claim 15, as well as claims 244 and 29 depending therefrom,
indefinite.
The prior art rejections
We shall not sustain the rejection of claim 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
anticipated by Scrivo or the rejection of claim 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Scrivo or Scrivo in view of Sturrus and further in view of Glance. For
the reasons expressed above, these claims are indefinite. Therefore, the prior art
rejections must fall because they are necessarily based on speculative assumption as
to the meaning of the claims. See In re Steele, 305 F.2d 859, 862-63, 134 USPQ 292,
295 (CCPA 1962). It should be understood, however, that our decision in this regard is
4 We presume the examiner's omission of claim 24 in the indefiniteness rejection to have been an
inadvertent error. We leave it to the examiner to rectify this error in the event of further prosecution with
respect to claim 24.
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