Appeal No. 1997-3842 Application No. 08/385,074 The prior art references of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are: Hirano et al. (Hirano) 4,460,923 Jul. 17, 1984 Langlais et al. (Langlais) 5,181,229 Jan. 19, 1993 (filed Dec. 28, 1989) Claims 1 through 10, 14 through 20, 22, 24 through 26, 28 through 30, and 35 through 44 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. � 103 as being unpatentable over Hirano. Claims 11 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. � 103 as being unpatentable over Hirano in view of Langlais. Reference is made to the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 33, mailed January 7, 1997) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejections, and to appellants' Brief (Paper No. 32, filed July 3, 1996) and Reply Brief (Paper No. 34, filed March 10, 1997) for appellants' arguments thereagainst. OPINION We have carefully considered the claims, the applied prior art references, and the respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we will reverse the obviousness rejections of claims 1 3Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007