Appeal No. 1997-3255
Application 08/199,455
rejection to be in error, and have not argued any dependent claims separately, we sustain the
Section 102 rejection of Claims 1-10 over Isaacs. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7).
We add the following two observations to ensure clarity regarding the constitution of the
record upon which we base our decision. First, appellants filed a proposed amendment to Claim
1 on November 4, 1996 (Paper No. 21), along with the instant Reply Brief; the amendment
which has not been entered. The proposed amendment -- to change Claim 1 such that “said front
portion having a non-circularly symmetric lateral cross-section taken in a plane transverse to the
axis of the frustoconical diaphragm” -- is more commensurate in scope with the arguments made.
Appellants were notified by the examiner that neither the Reply Brief nor the proposed
amendment had been entered. Appellants petitioned for entry of the Reply Brief, and the Reply
Brief was subsequently entered into the record for consideration on appeal. However, the
proposed amendment has not been entered. Claim 1 before us contains the language concerning
the “lateral cross-section” as submitted with the appendix of claims in the Brief and reproduced
in the “Background” section supra.
Second, on page 3 of the Reply Brief, appellants refer to material submitted with the
“amendment of April 26, 1995,” namely “informal drawings...identified as Figs. 6 and 7,
showing lateral cross sections of member 21 taken perpendicular to axis 31. The Examiner
refused consideration of such drawings.” Actually, the examiner’s response, according to the
- 5 -5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007