Appeal No. 1997-0164
Application 08/349,300
These are the only claims remaining in this application.
Claims 5 through 9, 11 and 25 were indicated as objected to by
the examiner as being dependent upon a rejected base claim but
would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including
all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening
claims (Answer, page 7). Accordingly, claims 1 through 4, 12
through 15, 22 through 24 and 26 through 29 remain under
appeal.
According to appellants, the invention is directed to a
method of forming popcorn bars where unpopped and partial
kernels are removed from popped popcorn, a molten binder in
the form of a caramel syrup is coated on the popped popcorn,
this mixture is compressed into a sheet, cooled, and cut into
bars (Brief, pages 1-2). Illustrative claims 1 and 22 are
reproduced and attached as an Appendix to this decision.
The examiner has relied upon the following references as
evidence of obviousness:
Dodge 1 2,181,109 Nov. 21, 1939
1The examiner has failed to list this reference under
“Prior Art of record” on page 3 of the Answer but has included
this reference in the statement of the rejection on page 4 of
the Answer. Since this reference was included in the Final
2
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