Appeal No. 1999-2328 Page 8
Application No. 08/485,492
art with respect to at least some of the claimed subject matter. As for Joffe, the
appellant states on page 18 of the Brief that none of the other inventors contributed to
the magnetic devices disclosed in that patent, but evidence of such has not been
submitted in accordance with Section 715.01(a) of the Manual of Patent Examining
Procedure.
At the oral hearing, the Board questioned appellant’s counsel regarding what of
the claimed subject matter found support in the applied Joffe reference, and while
counsel replied he was not prepared to answer at that time, he later stated in writing
that “only claims 1 and 2 read on devices as shown in the ‘519 patent [the Joffe
reference],” and that “Fig. 26 of that patent has a right-angled interface pair, but no
member fits into an interface corner as in claim 6" (Paper No. 36, page 2). The
appellant also pointed out, in response to the Board’s questioning, that he had
requested, without success, that the examiner assist him in perfecting his assertion that
the Joffe patent was not a proper reference (Paper No. 36, pages 1 and 2).
Finally, the appellant complained on page 18 of the Brief that “[v]irtually no
substantive analysis has appeared in the Official Actions in support of the [Section 102]
rejections.” We agree. The fact is that the entirety of the examiner’s statement of the
two Section 102 rejections is “[s]ee, for example, Pryor Figure 1a and col. 4, lines 53-
55" (Paper No. 19, page 4). Not even a mention is made of Joffe. This clearly does not
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