Appeal No. 97-2547
Application 07/949,042
DeHart, there is no work station, no conveyance of
contents between an extractor and a work station,
and no horizontally extending path” (main brief
[Paper No. 15], page 6). This line of argument,
however, is not persuasive. The area immediately
downstream of DeHart’s chute 38 constitutes a work
station as broadly defined in claim 21. In
addition, the lower end of the chute 38, which
extends tangentially to the horizontal, would
inherently function to convey the extracted contents
of each envelope along a horizontally extending path
to this work station as broadly claimed. Thus,
DeHart does indeed meet the limitations in claim 21
argued by the appellants.
Since the appellants have not challenged the 35
USC 102(b) rejection of claim 26 with any reasonable
specificity, this claim falls with parent claim 21
(see In re Nielson, 816 F.2d 1567, 2 USPQ2d 1525
(Fed. Cir. 1987)) [Paper No. 20, pages 4 and 5].
In their request for reconsideration, the appellants
submit that
Claims 21 and 26 distinguish over DeHart in the
following ways: (1) the term work station is a term
of art which has an established meaning and cannot
be given the broad interpretation suggested by the
Board; (2) the work station is defined as being
positioned “to one side of the machine”; and (3)
DeHart does not show the conveying of contents along
a horizontally extending path to a work station
[request, page 1].
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