Appeal No. 2006-1164
Application No. 10/139,185
Stahlecker US 5,791,385 Aug. 11, 1998
Mekata US 6,345,739 Feb. 12, 2002
Claims 1, 10, 14-16, 32 and 46 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by Stahlecker.
Claims 2 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over
Stahlecker.
Finally, all of the appealed claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being obvious over Mekata.
We refer to the Brief and Reply Brief and to the Answer for a complete
exposition of the opposing viewpoints expressed by the Appellants and by the
Examiner concerning the above noted rejections.
OPINION
For the reasons set forth below, we sustain the rejections of claim 32 but not
the rejections of the other claims on appeal.
As correctly indicated by the Examiner in the Answer and not disputed by
the Appellants in the Brief or Reply Brief, the system defined by independent
claim 32 is not structurally distinguished by the intended use and functional
statements which are recited in the claim. Stated otherwise, such statements do not
make a claim to an old product or system patentable. In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d
1473, 1477-78, 44 USPQ2d 1429, 1431-32 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Similarly, the
Examiner has properly determined that the systems of Stahlecker and Mekata
structurally correspond to the claim 32 system (e.g., compare Stahlecker’s Figure 8
disclosure with Appellants’ Figure 2 disclosure and Mekata’s Figure 6 disclosure
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