Appeal No. 1999-2728 Page 2
Application No. 08/423,963
within a joint (specification, p. 1). A copy of the claims under
appeal is set forth in the appendix filed with Paper No. 23.
The examiner relied upon the following prior art reference
of record in rejecting the appealed claims:
Smith 3,845,772 Nov. 5, 1974
The following rejection is before us for review.
Claims 1-11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
unpatentable over Smith.1
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by
the examiner and the appellant regarding the above-noted
rejection, we make reference to the answer and preceding Office
action (Paper Nos. 17 and 14) for the examiner's complete
reasoning in support of the rejection and to the brief and reply
brief (Paper Nos. 16 and 18) for the appellant's arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given
careful consideration to the appellant's specification and
claims, to the applied Smith reference, and to the respective
positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. For the
reasons which follow, we cannot sustain the examiner's rejection.
1 The examiner’s omission of claims 9-11 in the statement of the
rejection on page 2 of the answer appears to us to have been an inadvertent
error.
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