Appeal No. 98-0979 Page 13
Application No. 08/517,909
as set forth supra, is to determine whether the examiner has
met his burden of proof by advancing acceptable reasoning
inconsistent with enablement. This the examiner has not done.
A claim which omits matter disclosed to be essential to
the invention as described in the specification or in other
statements of record may be rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112,
first paragraph, as not enabling. Mayhew, Id. Such essential
matter may include missing elements, steps or necessary
structural cooperative relationships of elements described by
the applicant(s) as necessary to practice the invention.
However, in this case, the appellants have not omitted any
matter from the claims under appeal disclosed to be essential
to the invention as described in the specification or in other
statements of record. As set forth previously, the examiner
has failed to cite any passage of the specification or in
other statements of record that would establish that any
essential step has been omitted from the claims under appeal.
The mere fact that other steps have been disclosed in the
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