Appeal No. 97-0082
Application No. 07/993,718
§ 1.191, appeals to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences
are taken from the decision of the primary examiner to reject
claims. We exercise no general supervisory power over the
examining corps and the decisions of primary examiners to enter
new grounds of rejection in the answer and of group directors to
“conditionally” grant petitions are not subject to our review.
See MPEP §§ 1002.02(c) and 1201; Cf. In re Mindick, 371 F.2d 892,
894, 152 USPQ 566, 568 (CCPA 1967) and In re Deters, 515 F.2d
1152, 1156, 185 USPQ 644, 648 (CCPA 1975). Thus, the relief
sought by the appellants would have properly been presented by a
petition to the Commissioner under 37 CFR § 1.181.
We have carefully reviewed the appellants’ invention as
described in the specification, the appealed claims, the prior
art applied by the examiner and the respective positions advanced
by the appellants in the brief and amended reply brief and by the
examiner in the answer and supplemental answer. As a consequence
of this review, we will sustain the examiner’s rejections of
claim 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, and claims 1, 4,
5, 8 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We will not, however, sustain
the examiner’s rejections of 6, 7, 9-15 and 19-23 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103. Additionally, pursuant to our authority under the
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