Appeal No. 2003-1371 Page 15
Application No. 09/186,856
in response to a player's location increases player throughput and utilization of space,
while still maintaining quality of play, we are persuaded that the references would have
suggested merging or splitting a display in response to a player's location in the
electronic game. Therefore, we affirm the obviousness rejection of claim 1.
E. JOINT ACTION OF PLAYERS
"[T]o assure separate review by the Board of individual claims within each group
of claims subject to a common ground of rejection, an appellant's brief to the Board
must contain a clear statement for each rejection: (a) asserting that the patentability of
claims within the group of claims subject to this rejection do not stand or fall together,
and (b) identifying which individual claim or claims within the group are separately
patentable and the reasons why the examiner's rejection should not be sustained." In
re McDaniel, 293 F.3d 1379, 1383, 63 USPQ2d 1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (citing 37
C.F.R. §1.192(c)(7) (2001)). "If the brief fails to meet either requirement, the Board is
free to select a single claim from each group of claims subject to a common ground of
rejection as representative of all claims in that group and to decide the appeal of that
rejection based solely on the selected representative claim." Id., 63 USPQ2d at 1465.
Here, although the appellants allege, "[t]he rejected claims do not stand or fall
together," (Appeal Br. at 7), they fail to satisfy the second requirement for certain
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