Appeal No. 96-1499
Application 08/133,013
limitations distinguished over the applied references nor is
it even clear whether appellants were even stressing the
“vehicle identification number” element as the distinguishing
feature. Moreover, in the very next paragraph, at the top of
page 10,
appellants state that “claims 6, 8, 9 and 11-12 all include a
similar feature that distinguishes over the Steel reference”
[emphasis ours]. It is unclear whether this is meant to
imply that only claims 6, 8, 9 and 11-12 include a similar
feature among themselves or whether this refers back to the
discussion of claims 1 and 3-5. If the latter, then it is
clear that appellants were not distinguishing between claims
with regard to the “vehicle identification number” because
independent claims 6 and 9 do not contain this limitation.
While the “vehicle identification number” may very well
distinguish claims 1 and 3 -5 over Steel, we have not taken
that position and did not treat the subject matter of
independent claim 1 on its merits because, as explained in our
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007