Appeal No. 1998-2514
Application No. 08/426,917
Brief (Paper No. 10) for appellants' position with respect to the claims which stand
rejected.
OPINION
At the outset, we note that a rejection for obviousness-type double patenting was
entered against claims 1, 5-8, 21-25, and 42-44. (See Rejection at 2.) However, the
rejection was not repeated in the Answer. Appellants filed a paper on April 28, 1997 which
purports to be a terminal disclaimer. However, there is no indication in the file that the
paper has been reviewed for compliance with the requisite formalities, nor that appellants
have been notified that the paper is acceptable. Nor is there any indication on the face of
the file wrapper that the application is subject to a terminal disclaimer. The record should
be clarified before the application is passed to issue. In any event, we assume that the
rejection for obviousness-type double patenting has been withdrawn, and we will not
address the rejection further.
As evidence of obviousness of the subject matter of claims 1, 5, and 42-44, the
examiner offers the teachings of Suzuki, Motoyoshi, and Blumberg. As the rejection sets
out on pages 4 through 9 of the Answer, Suzuki is deemed to disclose essential features
of the invention as claimed, but does not show "a gripper mechanism or related hardware,"
or that the "third means causes the lifting and dropping off of the cassettes in the first and
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