Appeal No. 1998-0714
Application No. 08/092,622
Reference is made to the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 16,
mailed April 15, 1997) for the examiner's complete reasoning
in support of the rejections, and to appellants' Brief (Paper
No. 15, filed January 13, 1997) and Reply Brief (Paper No. 17,
filed June 16, 1997) for appellants' arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
As a preliminary matter, we note that appellants indicate
on page 7 of the Brief that the claims are not to stand or
fall together. Appellants propose the following four groups
of claims and argue each group separately in accordance with
37 C.F.R.
§ 1.192(c)(7): 1) claims 1 and 2, 2) claims 3 through 8,
3) claims 9 through 15, and 4) claim 16. As we agree with the
proposed grouping, we will treat the claims accordingly, with
claims 1, 3, 9, and 16, respectively, as representative.
We have carefully considered the claims, the applied
prior art references, and the respective positions articulated
by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our
review, we will affirm the obviousness rejection of claims 1
and 2 and reverse the obviousness rejection of claims 3
through 16.
3
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