Appeal No. 1998-2557
Application No. 08/335,550
by appellant have been considered in this decision. Arguments
which appellant could have made but chose not to make in the
brief have not been considered [see 37 CFR § 1.192(a)].
Claims 21-25, 27-32 and 34-39 all contain the encoding
feature discussed above with respect to claims 26 and 33. We
make two critical observations with respect to the rejection
of these claims. First, the examiner relies on the same
incorrect interpretation of Gerard to support the conclusion
that the invention of these claims would have been obvious.
Second, the additional teachings of Alattar alone or Alattar
and Sugiyama taken together do not overcome the basic
deficiency in Gerard discussed above. Therefore, the
collective evidence applied by the examiner fails to establish
a prima facie case of the obviousness of the claimed
invention. Accordingly, we do not sustain the obviousness
rejection of claims 21-25, 27-32 and 34-39.
Remaining independent claim 40 does not have the
limitations discussed above with respect to claims 21-39. The
examiner explains how the collective teachings of Gerard and
Alattar are perceived to render the invention of claim 40
obvious [final rejection, pages 5-6]. Appellant argues that
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