Appeal No. 1996-0270
Application 08/118,128
We have carefully considered all of the arguments
advanced by appellant and the examiner and agree with the
examiner that the claimed invention would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of appellant’s
invention over the applied prior art. Accordingly, we sustain
the aforementioned rejection.2
Appellant argues that the claims stand or fall in four
groups as follows: 1) claims 1, 5 and 8-10, 2) claims 2-4,
3) claims 19 and 20, and 4) claims 21 and 22 (brief, pages 3-
4). We therefore limit our discussion to one claim in each
group, namely, claims 1, 2, 19 and 21. See In re Ochiai, 71
F.3d 1565, 1566 n.2, 37 USPQ2d 1127, 1129 n.2 (Fed. Cir.
1995); 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(5)(1993).
Rejection of claim 1
2 Pignatello is not prior art because it has the same
inventive entity as the present application and was not issued
more than one year prior to the filing date of the present
application. Consequently, we do not consider Pignatello.
The examiner relies upon Pignatello merely for a teaching that
2,4-D is a pesticide (final rejection mailed June 7, 1994,
paper no. 8, page 3), which is disclosed by Sun (page 322,
right column, first full paragraph) and acknowledged by
appellant (specification, page 6, lines 18-19). Thus, our
excluding Pignatello from consideration does not cause our
affirmance to involve a new ground of rejection.
3
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