Appeal No. 2002-2223
Application No. 09/475,891
The Examiner also rejected claims 15, 16 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Lee and Maniar, as applied to claims 12 to 14,
further in view of Grimbergen and claim 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Lee and Maniar, as applied to claims 12,
further in view of Goda. The Examiner, in both the Answer and Final Rejection,
provided explanations to support the rejection of these claims. The Appellant has
failed to specifically traverse these remaining rejections. Consequently, we will
uphold the rejection of the claims 15, 16, 18 and 20 for the reasons provided by the
Examiner.
We note Appellant’s issues 2-4, Brief pages 5-6, consider that the Examiner
has improperly finally rejected the claimed subject matter. Questions regarding
actions taken by the Examiner, such as requesting the withdrawal of a final
rejection, are petitionable under 37 CFR § 1.181 to the Commissioner, and not
subject to our review.
Based on our consideration of the totality of the record before us, having
evaluated the prima facie case of obviousness in view of Appellant’s arguments, we
conclude that the subject matter of claims 12 to 16, 18 and 20 would have been
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