Appeal No. 1997-3481
Application 08/476,543
point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which
applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 15-26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Dobras, McWaters, Sakai, Swartz '798,
Chadima, and Knowles.
We refer to the first Office action (Paper No. 3), the
Final Rejection (Paper No. 7), the Examiner's Answer (Paper
No. 10) (pages referred to as "EA__"), and the Supplemental
Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 12) (pages referred to as
"SEA__") for a statement of the Examiner's position and to the
Brief (Paper No. 9) (pages referred to as "Br__") and the
Reply Brief (Paper No. 11) (pages referred to as "RBr__") for
Appellants' arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph
As a procedural matter, as discussed by Appellants in
their Reply Brief, the Examiner did not repeat the § 112
enablement rejection from the first Office action in the Final
Rejection. Under Patent and Trademark Office rules,
Appellants could consider the rejection withdrawn since they
were not repeated. See 37 CFR § 1.113(b) (1995). The
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