Appeal No. 2001-0864
Application No. 08/841,214
Claims 1-6, 8, 10-16, 18, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Womack in view of Boehnlein further in view of Bou-Ghannam.
Claims 6, 7, 16, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Womack, Boehnlein, and Bou-Ghannam further in view of Cuthbert.1
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
answer (Paper No. 15, mailed Aug. 23, 2000) for the examiner's reasoning in support of
the rejections, and to appellants’ brief (Paper No. 14, filed Jun. 13, 2000) for appellants’
arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
At the outset, we note that appellants indicate that there are related appeals in
Serial No. 08/841,037 and Serial No. 08/840,351. We have reviewed the records of
these applications and find that Serial No. 08/841,037 was allowed after filing of the
appeal brief and is now US Patent No. 6,100,971. Serial No. 08/840,351 was appealed
to the Board as Appeal No. 2000-1414 and was affirmed-in-part.
1 We note that claims 6 and 16 are rejected under both grounds.
3
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