Appeal No. 1998-0036 Page 3
Application No. 08/431,203
Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Swisher in view of
Meckel. We affirm the rejections with respect to the subject matter of claims 1-7 and 9-11, but
reverse with respect to the subject matter of claim 14. Our reasons follow.
OPINION
Claim Groupings
Appellants indicate that the claims do not stand or fall together in section VII of the Brief (page
3). However, Appellants do not provide details in this portion of the Brief as to how the claims are to
be grouped. Turning to the argument section of the Brief, we note that separate arguments are
provided for claims 1 and 14 in subsections VIII(a) and (c)(Brief, pages 4-7 and 8-10). A separate
subsection, VIII(b), is provided for arguments directed to the rejection of claim 10, however, the
arguments thereunder are directed not to the combination of prior art including the additional reference,
Sallo, but to the combination of references used to reject the subject matter of claim 1 and the other
claims dependent thereon (Brief, page 7). Therefore, as Appellants have not argued the merits of any
particular dependent claim apart from claim 1, we select claims 1 and 14 for consideration of the issues
on appeal. 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(1995).
The Process
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