Appeal No. 1998-0910
Application No. 08/454,596
paragraph, as being indefinite.2
Claims 1 through 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable over Burns in view of Ushitora and
Oldfelt.
The full text of the examiner's rejections and response
to the argument presented by appellant appears in the answer
(Paper No. 15), while the complete statement of appellant’s
argument can be found in the main and reply briefs (Paper Nos.
14 and 16).
In the main brief (pages 5 and 6) and reply brief (page
1), appellant indicates that claims 3 and 5 through 8 may be
considered together with claim 1, and claim 4 may be
considered together with claim 2. Accordingly, we shall focus
our attention, infra, exclusively upon claims 1 and 2, with
2Only independent claim 1 has been rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, ostensibly since the
asserted indefiniteness appears therein. Nevertheless, and
generally speaking, when an independent claim is perceived to
be indefinite, it is appropriate to reject all dependent
claims as well since they incorporate the indefiniteness of
the independent claim therein.
3
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