Appeal No. 2000-0031
Application No. 09/061,526
the subject matter as a whole of independent claims 2 and 6 on
appeal obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time
of appellant’s invention, we must refuse to sustain the
examiner’s rejection of those claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
It follows that the examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 5
and 7 through 10 will likewise not be sustained.
Accordingly, the decision of the examiner to reject
claims 2 and 5 through 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
In addition to the foregoing, we REMAND this application
to the examiner for a more complete search of the prior art.
In the examination of an application for a patent, the
examiner is charged with the responsibility of conducting a
thorough search of the prior art, which search should cover
the invention as described and claimed, including the
inventive concepts toward which the claims are directed.
Noting that the “SEARCHED” box on the file wrapper of the
present application indicates that the examiner only searched
this case in Class 182, subclass 90, we observe that §
904.01(c) of the M.P.E.P. cautions the examiner that not only
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