## Facts

- Patent applicants sought claims to compositions produced by fluorinating specified alkyladamantanes.
- The specification described the adamantane nucleus and asserted that fluorination to at least 75% of perfluorination yields highly fluorinated products with desirable properties.
- Claims 1–2 covered mixtures made by fluorinating enumerated alkyladamantane starting materials to a degree of fluorination at least 75% of perfluorination.
- Claims 3–7 covered highly fluorinated compositions of particular alkyladamantanes defined by minimum fluorine-atom counts (e.g., at least 15 fluorine atoms per molecule).
- The Patent Office allowed separate claims limited to perfluorinated products (all available hydrogens replaced by fluorine).
- The examiner and Board rejected claims 1–7 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, reasoning that the disclosure did not adequately describe/enable the broad range of less-than-perfluorinated mixtures and did not sufficiently define their scope; no prior art references were applied.
- The Board affirmed, and the applicants appealed to the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

## Issues

1. Whether the specification satisfied 35 U.S.C. § 112 for claims to “highly fluorinated” alkyladamantane mixtures and compositions defined by numerical fluorination thresholds, despite potential variability in isomers and mixture composition.
2. Whether such claims were indefinite under § 112 because they did not fully characterize all possible intermediate fluorination products.

## Decision

- The CCPA reversed the Board’s decision.
- The court held that rejecting claims 1–7 under 35 U.S.C. § 112 was improper.
- The court concluded the claims’ numerical fluorination limits and specified starting materials provided sufficient definition and that the disclosure enabled practice of the claimed compositions without requiring complete characterization of all mixture constituents.

## Legal Principles

- In evaluating § 112 where no prior art is at issue, the question is whether the disclosure reasonably supports and enables the claimed subject matter and whether claim boundaries are sufficiently clear.
- Numerical compositional limits (e.g., “at least 75% of perfluorination” or a minimum number of substituent atoms) can function as meaningful limitations defining the scope of a chemical composition claim.
- A disclosure need not describe or enable every possible isomer or exact mixture distribution within claimed numerical bounds if a person of ordinary skill can make compositions meeting the limits without undue experimentation and can determine whether a composition falls within the claim.
- A composition claim is not indefinite merely because it covers mixtures or a range of compositions, where quantitative boundaries and structural identifiers provide a reasonably clear indication of scope.

## Conclusion

The CCPA held that the applicants’ disclosure and claim language satisfied § 112 for highly fluorinated alkyladamantane mixtures and compositions: the claims were sufficiently described, enabled, and definite despite encompassing variable mixtures, because they were constrained by defined starting materials and quantitative fluorination thresholds.


Application of Moore, 439 F.2d 1232 (C.C.P.A. 1971)