Appeal No. 2002-2021 Page 3
Application No. 09/024,077
(4) Claims 1, 2, 4, 5 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Semenov in view of Musschoot.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
the appellant regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the
(Supplemental) Answer (Paper No. 27) for the examiner's complete reasoning in
support of the rejections, and to the (Complete) Brief (Paper No. 26)3 and the Reply
Brief (Paper No. 28) 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 prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
As a preliminary matter, we note that the appellant has included in the issues
before us a challenge to the propriety of the examiner’s withdrawal of claims 8-10 from
consideration on the basis that they are directed to a non-elected species of the
invention (Issue D; Brief, pages 31-33). As the examiner has stated on page 10 of the
Answer, this issue relates to petitionable subject matter under 37 CFR § 1.181 and is
not appealable to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences.
3The appellant filed several briefs in the course of the prosecution of this application, the
appropriate contents of which were consolidated in Paper No. 26 (see pages 1-3). Entry of this “Complete
Brief” was approved by the examiner (Paper No. 27, page 2)
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007