Appeal No. 1998-1315
Application No. 08/334,751
supplemental answer (Paper No. 25, mailed November 17, 1999)
for the reasoning in support of the rejections, and to
appellants’ brief (Paper No. 13, received December 10, 1997),
reply brief (Paper No. 18, received June 3, 1997) and
supplemental reply brief (Paper No. 20, received November 4,
1997) for the arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given
careful consideration to appellants’ specification and claims,
to the applied prior art references, and to the respective
positions as set forth by the appellants and the examiner.
Before addressing the examiner’s rejection specifically,
we note that on page 8 of the brief, appellants indicate that
“dependent claims 5 and 17 stand or fall with independent
claim 1.” Claim 1 is also the only independent claim that
includes the objected to language of “an exclusively dry
filtering means” which the examiner deems as new matter.
Therefore, we will decide the issues on appeal based on this
claim alone.
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