Appeal No. 97-0937
Application No. 08/054,508
Claims 46-50 also stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Enloe in view of Igaue, Repke, Boland,
Kielpikowski and Freeland.
The rejections are explained in the Examiner's Answer.2
The opposing viewpoints of the appellants are set forth
in the Brief.
OPINION
After consideration of the positions and arguments
presented by both the examiner and the appellant, we have
concluded that neither of the rejections should be sustained.
Our reasons for arriving at this conclusion follow.
Both of the rejections are under 35 U.S.C. § 103. The
test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the
2The examiner saw fit in the Answer to explain the
rejections by referring only to pages and lines from three
previous office actions. Two of those (Papers 21 and 14) used
the same format, and only when one reached Paper No. 10, the
first office action, were the rejections actually explained.
This is a flagrant violation of the instructions regarding
reference to previous papers in Examiner’s Answers (see MPEP
§1208). More importantly, however, like the appellants, we
found it very difficult to effectively and efficiently
understand and evaluate the rejections, which is the very
reason for the rule.
3
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