Appeal No. 1999-2446 Page 28
Application No. 08/705,592
Claim 22
The appellant has grouped claims 21 and 22 as standing or
falling together. Thereby, in accordance with 37 CFR11
§ 1.192(c)(7), claim 22 falls with claim 21. Thus, it follows
that the decision of the examiner to reject claim 22 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Scott is also
affirmed.
Claims 23 and 24
Independent claim 23 recites the step of "screening the
wood fragments through a plurality of screens to obtain size-
selected wood fragments." Once again the examiner has not
provided any evidence as to why it would have been obvious at
the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary
skill in the art to have subjected the wood fragments of Scott
to such a screening step. Since the examiner has not
established that the subject matter of claim 23 would have
been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the decision of the
examiner to reject claim 23 and claim 24 dependent thereon
11See page 5 of the appellant's brief.
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