Appeal No. 2001-0089
Application 08/975,469
Claims 7 through 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable over Hensley.
The full text of the examiner’s rejection and response to
the argument presented by appellants appears in the answer
(Paper No. 37), while the complete statement of appellants’
argument can be found in the brief2 (Paper No. 36).
OPINION
In reaching our conclusion on the obviousness issue
raised in this appeal, this panel of the board has carefully
considered appellants’ specification and claims,3 the applied
2 We are informed by appellants (brief, page 1) of the
earlier decision in Appeal No. 97-0253 wherein “the claimed
subject matter was different.” That decision affirmed a
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, and reversed
a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 based upon the Hensley
patent, the same patent applied in the current appeal.
3 Claim 16 (line 2), as it appears in the Appendix to the
brief, lacks the recitation of --in a retaining groove-- after
“ring”, which recitation is found in the file copy of the
claim. Thus, the examiner’s indication (answer, page 2) that a
correct copy of the claims is contained in the Appendix is in
error.
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007