Appeal No. 1996-3811
Application 08/188,078
Appellants argue that the Examiner erroneously
indicates a grouping in accordance with the issues, and not
the grouping of claims as set forth by Appellants (RBr1).
We agree. The Examiner's statement that claims 1-3, 5-7, 9,
12-15, and 17-19 do not stand or fall together is in error
because Appellants have only argued limitations found in the
independent claims 1, 5, and 9 and a limitation found in
claims 17-19. It is not necessary to address each claim
separately. The Examiner's statement that claims 4, 8, 10,
11, and 16 stand or fall together is in error because
Appellants have not argued any of the claims separately.
The source of the problem is evident in the Examiner's
statement that (SEA3): "Declaring claims 1-16 to be a
particular grouping as proposed by Appellant is not
appropriate because these claims span two separate grounds
of rejection." However, claims 4, 8, 10, 11, and 16 in the
second rejection are not argued separately and are dependent
on claims rejected in the first rejection; i.e., Appellants
have elected to have all the dependent claims in the second
rejection stand or fall with the broadest of the independent
claims in the first rejection. There is nothing wrong with
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