Source: https://www.ptab.us/2011/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 10:03:16+00:00

Document:
The test for definiteness under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, is whether “those skilled in the art would understand what is claimed when the claim is read in light of the specification.” Orthokinetics, Inc. v. Safety Travel Chairs, Inc., 806 F.2d 1565, 1576 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (citations omitted).
[W]e employ a lower threshold of ambiguity when reviewing a pending claim for indefiniteness than those used by post-issuance reviewing courts. In particular, rather than requiring that the claims are insolubly ambiguous, we hold that if a claim is amenable to two or more plausible claim constructions, the USPTO is justified in requiring the applicant to more precisely define the metes and bounds of the claimed invention by holding the claim unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as indefinite.
The USPTO, as the sole agency vested with the authority to grant exclusionary rights to inventors for patentable inventions, has a duty to guard the public against patents of ambiguous and vague scope. Such patents exact a cost on society due to their ambiguity that is not commensurate with the benefit that the public gains from disclosure of the invention. The USPTO is justified in using a lower threshold showing of ambiguity to support a finding of indefiniteness under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, because the applicant has an opportunity and a duty to amend the claims during prosecution to more clearly and precisely define the metes and bounds of the claimed invention and to more clearly and precisely put the public on notice of the scope of the patent.
Ex parte Miyazaki, 89 USPQ2d 1207, 1211-12 (BPAI 2008) (precedential).
Adams were mere substitutions of pre-existing battery designs supported by the prior art.”).
We recognize that any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning, but is proper so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made and does not include knowledge gleaned only from applicant’s disclosure. In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 1395 (CCPA 1971). However, Appellants do not meaningfully explain how the determination of obviousness is based upon knowledge gleaned only from Appellants’ Specification.
Two criteria are relevant in determining whether prior art is analogous: “(1) whether the art is from the same field of endeavor, regardless of the problem addressed, and (2) if the reference is not within the field of the inventor’s endeavor, whether the reference still is reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor is involved.” Wyers v Master Lock Co., 616 F.3d 1231, 1237 (Fed Cir. 2010) (quotations and citations omitted).
With respect to the judicially created “abstract idea” exception, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently stated that it “does ‘not presume to define ‘abstract’ beyond the recognition that this disqualifying characteristic should exhibit itself so manifestly as to override the broad statutory categories of eligible subject matter and the statutory context that directs primary attention on the patentability criteria of the rest of the Patent Act.’” Ultramercial, LLC v. Hulu, LLC, 657 F.3d 1323, 1327 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (citing Research Corp. Tech., Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 627 F.3d 859, 868 (Fed. Cir. 2010)).

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