Appeal No. 97-1019
Application 08/063,463
have been (1) objected to since they depend from rejected parent
claims and (2) indicated as being allowable subject to the
requirement that they be rewritten to include all the subject
matter of the claims from which they depend. We reverse. 2
The appellants’ invention pertains to (1) a utility
distribution system for open office plans, (2) a utility post for
distributing utilities from a prefabricated floor construction to
a workstation and (3) a utility distribution kit for open office
plans. Independent claims 1, 34 and 57 are further illustrative
of the appealed subject matter and read as follows:
2The body of the final rejection inconsistently indicated
that claims 11, 12 and 26 were both rejected and objected to as
being allowable subject to the requirement that they be rewritten
to include all the subject matter of the claims from which they
depend. However, the summary on page 1 of the final rejection
made it clear that claims 11, 12 and 26 were objected to, and not
rejected. Although page 3 of the answer includes claims 11, 12
and 26 in the “rejected” claims, it appears that the examiner
simply copied what was set forth in the body of the final
rejection, thereby inadvertently including claims 11, 12 and 16.
In any event, the appellants in the brief under the “STATUS OF
CLAIMS” have included claims 11, 12 and 26 in the “objected to”
claims (and not the “rejected” claims) and the examiner on page 1
of the answer has stated that the statement of the status of the
claims contained in the brief is correct. Accordingly, we
conclude that both the appellants and examiner agree that claims
11, 12 and 26 are “objected to” and not “rejected.” This
interpretation is reinforced by the fact that the file wrapper
under the “INDEX OF CLAIMS” indicates that claims 11, 12 and 26
are “objected to.”
2
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