Appeal No. 2006-0524 Παγε 3
Application No. 10/051,577
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and the
appellant regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the answer
(mailed March 18, 2005) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the
rejections, and to the brief (filed February 22, 2005) and reply brief (filed May 17, 2005)
for the appellant's arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
We turn first to the examiner's rejection of claims 2, 14 and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, first paragraph as failing to comply with the enablement requirement. In support
of this rejection, the examiner states:
There are tow problems with this part of the specification, the
first part . . . being that it is not clear what forces are
transmitted, and the second part. . . is that it is not clear how
one would build such a device even if one did understand
what forces are transmitted [answer at page 3].
At the outset, we note that an analysis of whether the claims under appeal are
supported by an enabling disclosure requires a determination of whether that disclosure
contained sufficient information regarding the subject matter of the appealed claims as to
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007