Appeal No. 1997-3481 Application 08/476,543 point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as his invention. Claims 15-26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Dobras, McWaters, Sakai, Swartz '798, Chadima, and Knowles. We refer to the first Office action (Paper No. 3), the Final Rejection (Paper No. 7), the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 10) (pages referred to as "EA__"), and the Supplemental Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 12) (pages referred to as "SEA__") for a statement of the Examiner's position and to the Brief (Paper No. 9) (pages referred to as "Br__") and the Reply Brief (Paper No. 11) (pages referred to as "RBr__") for Appellants' arguments thereagainst. OPINION 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph As a procedural matter, as discussed by Appellants in their Reply Brief, the Examiner did not repeat the § 112 enablement rejection from the first Office action in the Final Rejection. Under Patent and Trademark Office rules, Appellants could consider the rejection withdrawn since they were not repeated. See 37 CFR § 1.113(b) (1995). The - 4 -Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007