Appeal No. 2004-0140
Application No. 10/154,729
The Examiner rejected claims 27 to 32 and 34 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
anticipated by Kulkarni; and claims 27 to 34 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious
over the combination of Kulkarni and Shimomuki. (Final Rejection, pp. 2-5).
DISCUSSION
We have carefully reviewed the claims, specification, provisional application
60/110,765 and applied prior art, including all of the arguments advanced by both
the Examiner and Appellants in support of their respective positions. This review
leads us to conclude that the Examiner’s rejections are well founded.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the Examiner
and Appellants concerning the above-noted rejections, we refer to the Answer and
the Briefs.
According to Appellants, the present application, 10/154,729, is a
continuation of US application serial no. 09/807,261, filed April 9, 2001, now US
patent 6,419,806, which is a 371 of PCT/US//9928723, filed December 3, 1999 and
published under PCT 21(2), which claims priority from the US provisional
application serial no. 60/110,765, filed December 3, 1998. (Specification, page 1).
The Kulkarni reference is available as prior art only if Appellants are not
entitled to the benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 120 of the earlier filing date of their U.S.
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