Appeal No. 1998-0253
Application No. 08/261,252
Claims 4 through 6, 8, 9, 11 and 12 also stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the Japanese
reference in view of Monforte and Hamada.5
Reference is made to the appellants’ main and reply
briefs (Paper Nos. 31, 34 and 38) and to the examiner’s main
and supplemental answers (Paper Nos. 32, 35 and 39) for the
respective positions of the appellants and the examiner with
regard to the merits of these rejections.6
In explaining the first rejection, the examiner concedes
(see pages 4 and 5 in the main answer) that the admitted prior
art assembly line method of loading a vehicle body on a
conveyor and then assembling parts to the body via robots
located at successive stations fails to respond to a multitude
of limitations in independent claims 4, 8 and 11. The
No. 32), to support this rejection.
5The examiner entered this ground of rejection for the
first time in the main answer.
6The examiner refused to enter an additional reply brief
filed by the appellants on December 19, 1996 (Paper No. 36).
Accordingly, we have not considered the arguments advanced
therein in reviewing the rejections on appeal.
-4-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007