Appeal No. 97-2963 Page 4
Application No. 08/284,728
Claims 1 and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Tracy in view of Roessler, Lippert and
Ahr.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by
the examiner and the appellants regarding the above-noted
rejections, we make reference to the examiner's answer (Paper 2
No. 17, mailed September 10, 1996) for the examiner's complete
reasoning in support of the rejections, and to the appellants'
brief (Paper No. 16, filed July 15, 1996) and reply brief (Paper
No. 18, filed October 25, 1996) for the appellants' arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given
careful consideration to the appellants' specification and
2Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 1208
provides that "Examiners may incorporate in the answer their
statement of the grounds of rejection merely by reference to the
final rejection (or a single other action on which it is based,
MPEP § 706.07). Only those statements of grounds of rejection as
appear in a single prior action may be incorporated by reference.
An examiner's answer should not refer, either directly or
indirectly, to more than one prior Office action." We note that
the examiner's answer in this case incorporated by reference
portions of four prior Office actions.
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