Appeal No. 1999-1480 Application No. 08/523,330 independent claims 52, 57, and 63 and dependent claim 66. In accordance with appellant’s desires, claims 52-56 stand or fall together, claims 57-62 stand or fall together, and claims 63-65 and 67-70 stand or fall together, and claim 66 stands or fall on its own. Note, claim 65 stands or falls with claim 63, because appellant did not argue the claim separately. In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the appellant's specification and claims , to the applied prior art references, and to the1 respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. We turn first to the examiner’s rejection of appealed claim 66 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, which rejection we understand to be based upon the written 1In regards to claims 55 and 59, line 2, “said handle” has no proper antecedent basis. Upon review of appellant’s proposed amendment on page 2 of the appeal brief, appellant proposed to amend claims 55 and 59, line 2, by deleting the word “handle” and substituting --spheroidal body--. As noted by the examiner (answer, page 1), this amendment has not been entered since it was not submitted in a separate paper from the appeal brief. See MPEP § 1207. 7Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007