Appeal No. 1998-3003 Page 6
Application No. 08/589,621
In evaluating the examiner's position regarding this
rejection (supplemental final rejection, pp. 2-4), we are
somewhat surprised by the examiner's failure to provide any
meaningful comparison of claims 1 through 8 of the present
application with patent claims 1 through 18 so as to establish
where each of the specific limitations recited in the rejected
claims is found in the patent claims and exactly what the
differences are between that which is now being claimed and
that which was already claimed in the appellants' prior
patent. In addition, we are struck by the paucity of the3
examiner's explanation as to how and why the presently claimed
subject matter set forth in claims 1 through 8 on appeal is
considered unpatentable over the invention as defined in the
appellants' prior patent claims 1 through 18.
Like the appellants (brief, pages 3-4), we do not
consider that the examiner has met his burden of proof
regarding unpatentability of claim 1 through 8 on appeal based
3A similar rejection was reversed in the parent
application.
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