Appeal No. 1997-1358
Application 07/874,651
on the notched portions 9 as shown in Binder. It is
appellants’ responsibility to either provide a specific
definition for “notched portion” in the disclosure or to
recite the structure of the notched portions within the claims
so as to distinguish the invention from the prior art.
Since the examiner has essentially found all the
elements of independent claim 20 within the disclosure of
Binder, and since appellants’ argument with respect to claim
interpretation has been decided adversely to them, we sustain
the rejection of claims 20-23 as being unpatentable over the
collective teachings of Binder and Schnittker.
We now consider the rejection of claims 24-39 as being
unpatentable over the teachings of Schnittker in view of Bawa.
With respect to these claims, the examiner asserts that
Schnittker teaches all the features of these claims except for
three specific features. The examiner finds that some of
these features are taught by Bawa and others of these features
are obvious design choices [answer, pages 3-4]. The examiner
concludes that the invention of claims 24-39 would have been
obvious to the artisan in view of the combined teachings of
9
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