Appeal No. 2002-0563
Application No. 09/381,755
Claims 7 through 111 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)
as being anticipated by Tomita.
Reference is made to the final rejection (paper number 7),
the briefs (paper numbers 13 and 15) and the answer (paper
number 14) for the respective positions of the appellants and the
examiner.
OPINION
We have carefully considered the entire record before us,
and we will reverse the anticipation rejection of claims 7
through 11.
Anticipation is only established when a single prior art
reference discloses every limitation of the claimed invention,
either explicitly or inherently. Glaxo Inc. v. Novopharm Ltd.,
52 F.3d 1043, 1047, 34 USPQ2d 1565, 1567 (Fed. Cir.), cert.
denied, 516 U.S. 3378 (1995). The examiner is of the opinion
(final rejection, page 2) that Tomita discloses all of the
limitations of the claims on appeal. Appellants argue (brief,
1 Appellants argue (brief, page 8; reply brief, page 3) that
it was improper to reject claim 9 since the statement of the
rejection (final rejection, page 2) did not list this claim.
Inasmuch as the first page of the final rejection put appellants
on notice that all of the claims on appeal were rejected, we find
that the omission of claim 9 on the second page of the final
rejection was harmless error on the part of the examiner.
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007