Appeal No. 2003-1648 Page 3
Application No. 09/648,359
Claims 18 to 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Steffens in view of Fayyad and Moroto as applied to claim 11 above, and further in
view of Foo.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
the appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the final
rejection (Paper No. 7, mailed April 24, 2002) and the answer (Paper No. 15, mailed
February 11, 2003) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejections,
and to the brief (Paper No. 14, filed December 2, 2002) and reply brief (Paper No. 16,
filed March 19, 2003) for the appellants' arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellants' specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. Upon evaluation of
all the evidence before us, it is our conclusion that the evidence adduced by the
examiner is insufficient to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to
the claims under appeal. Accordingly, we will not sustain the examiner's rejection of
claims 1, 2, 5 to 7, 9, 11, 13, 14 and 16 to 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Our reasoning for
this determination follows.
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