Appeal No. 96-1152
Application 08/001,091
Claims 1 to 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. As 2
evidence of obviousness, the examiner relies upon Baker alone.
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellants and the
examiner, reference is made to the various briefs and answers for
the respective details thereof.
OPINION
At the outset, we note that page 3 of the answer indicates
the examiner relies upon the final rejection and an earlier
Office action for the statement of the rejection of the present
claims on appeal. Page 2 of the final rejection itself
incorporates by reference this prior Office action. This
approach of the examiner violates MPEP § 1208, Topic A, which
permits the examiner to rely upon a single Office action for a
statement of the rejection and instructs the examiner to avoid
multiple references to other Office actions.
Essentially, for the reasons set forth by the appellants in
the various briefs, we reverse the outstanding rejection of all
claims on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 103. There are various
reasons for this conclusion.
2An additional prior art rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103
based on a reference to Thomas has been withdrawn at page 3 of
the answer.
3
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