Appeal No. 1996-1362
Application 08/234,074
28, 2000, the examiner issued a Supplemental Examiner's Answer (Suppl. Answer) in
which he withdrew the reliance on the Okuno reference (Page 2), but maintained the
rejection of the claims over the combination considering Matsumura as the primary
reference. (Id.) Appellants filed a response, entitled Appellants' Response to the
Examiner's Supplemental Answer (App. Response),on May 30, 2000 (Paper No. 28) in
which they responded to the examiner’s further explanation of the rejection and the reliance
on the translation of the Japanese Kokai to Matsumura. Appellants did not dispute the
procedural handling of the prosecution or consideration of this new document as a basis
for the rejection of the claims. Appellants responded to the examiner's new arguments in
support of the rejection and additionally referred back to those arguments presented in the
Appeal Brief (App. Response, page 2). It is in light of these filings by both the examiner
and appellants and the translation of the Japanese Kokai to Matsumura that we again
consider the issues raised by this appeal.
The rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103
In rejecting claims 1-3, 6-11, 17-27, and 30-32 under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner
has relied on the disclosure of Matsumura in view of Akiyama further in view of Jugle,
Tomono, Creatura, and Ong all considered with Bonetzkaya and Ketcham. We refer to
pages 5-7 of the Board Decision of March 24, 2000 for the discussion of the examiner's
reliance on the cited references as well as appellants' response. In reaching our decision
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