Appeal No. 1999-0627 Page 11
Application No. 08/688,991
would have been an obvious matter of design choice (final
rejection, page 3).
As to claims 4, 5 and 10, the appellants state that
"admittedly these claims do not add further distinguishing
features to claim 1" (brief, page 5). Accordingly, these
claims are treated as falling with claim 1. See In re
Nielson, 816 F.2d 1567, 1572, 2 USPQ2d 1525, 1528 (Fed. Cir.
1987). As discussed above, we have sustained the examiner's
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of claim 1 as being anticipated
by Nunn. Thus, it follows that the examiner's rejection of
claims 4, 5 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Nunn is also sustained.
As to claims 8 and 9, the appellants have argued that the
specific length of the rear section recited in claim 8 "cannot
be read on the tail end of [Nunn]" and that "[t]he tail of the
[handle] shown in [Nunn] clearly is much more sharply angled"
than the 10 degree angle recited in claim 9 (brief, pages 5
and 6), but have not responded to the examiner's assertions on
page 2 of the final rejection that the modification of Nunn to
provide a rear section (R) having such a dimension and angle
of inclination would have been obvious.
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