Appeal No. 1997-1358
Application 07/874,651
37 CFR § 1.192(a)].
We consider first the rejection of claims 20-23 as
being unpatentable over the teachings of Binder in view of
Schnittker. Since appellants only address this rejection with
respect to independent claim 20, claims 20-23 will stand or
fall together, and we will consider independent claim 20 as
the representative claim. With respect to this first
rejection, the examiner essentially determines that Binder
discloses all the features of these claims except for the use
of a grommet within the first plurality of fingers. The
examiner observes that Schnittker teaches a grommet within
tabs, and the examiner asserts that it would have been obvious
to the artisan to use Schnittker’s grommet in Binder’s
connector [answer, page 3].
We note that there is no grommet recited in
independent claim 20. The grommet first appears in dependent
claim 21. Thus, the examiner has not identified anything in
claim 20 which is not disclosed by Binder. Appellants focus
their attention only on the portion of claim 20 which recites
that “each of said first plurality of fingers have a notched
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