Appeal No. 1998-1441
Application No. 08/294,779
OPINION
Initially, we note that the appendix of claims that accompanied the Brief is not
correct. Claim 52 depends from claim 55, rather than from (canceled) claim 2, in
accordance with the amendment filed June 22, 1992 (Paper No. 10). Claims 59 and 61 in
the appendix do not reflect the corrections made to the claims by the amendment filed May
5, 1993 (Paper No. 15).
We also note that the Answer, on pages 12 through 14, repeats rejections of claims
63, 66-68, 70, 71, 74-76, and 78 which include Goldberg (U.S. Patent 4,383,261) as a
reference. The Answer (page 5) also lists Goldberg as prior art relied upon in the rejection
of claims on appeal. However, although the above-noted rejections stood at the time of the
Final Rejection (set forth at pages 12 through 14), it is clear from the Advisory Action
mailed April 30, 1997 (Paper No. 46) that the rejections have been withdrawn, and the
claims allowed, in view of appellants’ amendment filed April 3, 1997 (Paper No. 45). We
also note, at the bottom of page 2 of the Answer, that the examiner states that claims which
included those rejected over the prior art including Goldberg are now allowed. Thus, we
have not considered the above-noted rejections, nor have we considered the Goldberg
reference in making our determinations.
Turning to the standing rejections, we first consider the rejection of claim 55, which
is the only independent claim on appeal, as being unpatentable over the prior art as
evidenced by the disclosures of Samuelson, Masaki, Kubota, Tsukada, and Winsor.
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