Appeal No. 1997-3728
Application No. 08/323,311
Claims 6-9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Matsueda,
Okubo, and Morozumi.
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 12) and the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 18) for
a statement of the examiner's position and to the Brief (Paper No. 17) for appellants’ position.
OPINION
Grouping of Claims
Appellants state that Claims 6-8 stand together, but Claim 9 stands alone. (Brief, page 8.)
Appellants submit arguments consistent with the stated grouping. Accordingly, we will consider the two
groups separately. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7).
Claims 6-8
The examiner has rejected Claims 6-9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable, with
Matsueda, Okubo, and Morozumi submitted as providing evidence of the obviousness of the subject
matter. (See Final Rejection, pages 2 and 3.) Appellants respond that, although an embodiment
disclosed by Matsueda is similar to appellants’ disclosure (see Brief, paragraph bridging pages 10 and
11), the reference contains a deficiency that is not remedied by the teachings of the other references.
1(...continued)
June 1995. Since the file wrapper does not reflect that a copy has been supplied to appellants, we are
providing a copy of the translation (with notations by the examiner) with the instant decision.
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