Appeal No. 96-1677
Application 08/144,735
states that claim 14 is different from claims 9 through 13. However, the “ARGUMENTS”
section of appellants’ Brief treats the claims together and does not include a second
argument directed to claim 14. In the Reply Brief, the appellants take issue with the
examiner’s statement in the Examiner’s Answer that claims 9 through 14 stand or fall
together. Inasmuch as 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7) specifically requires both a statement that
the claims do not stand or fall together and arguments under paragraph (c)(8)
explaining why the claims of the group are believed to be separately patentable, and
since we do not find any discussion of claim 14 independent from claims 9 through 13
in the “ARGUMENT” section of the appellants’ Main and Reply Brief, we conclude that
the examiner is correct and that claims 9 through 14 shall stand or fall together. We
limit our analysis to claim 9.
The sole issue on appeal is the rejection by the examiner of claims 9 through 14
under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph. The examiner has objected to the specification
and rejects claims 9 through 14 for the reason that the specification discloses the
flanges as being peripheral. According to the examiner, there is no disclosure of the
flanges being merely elongate.
Opinion
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007