Appeal No. 1998-3271
Application No. 08/563,156
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Columbus;2 claims 5-8, 18-20
and 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Landis;
and claims 21, 22, 25 and 28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
obvious over Landis.3
OPINION
We reverse the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112 and the
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) over Landis, and affirm the
remaining rejections.
The appellants indicate that the claims stand or fall in
three groups: 1) claims 3 and 4, 2) claims 5-28, and 3) claims 29
and 30 (brief, page 5). Claims 29 and 30 are not rejected over
prior art. With respect to the prior art rejections, therefore,
we limit our discussion to one claim within each of the first two
2 The examiner’s answer states that this rejection is under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(e), which does not exist. The examiner argues the rejection as if it
were under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e), and this rejection is set forth in the final
rejection (page 6) as being under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e). We therefore consider
the examiner’s statement of the rejection in the examiner’s answer as being
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 to be inadvertent and treat the rejection as if it is
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e).
3 In each of the rejections in the examiner’s answer except the
rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 of claims 3 and 4 and the rejection of claims
5-11 and 18-25 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) over Watanabe, the examiner omits some
claims which were rejected in the final rejection. Also, the examiner omits
from the examiner’s answer rejections which were made in the final rejection
of claims 29 and 30 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) over U.S. 5,188,789 to Nishiura,
and claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Nishiura in view of U.S. 4,142,010 to
Pipkin et al. We consider the rejections of claims which were rejected in the
final rejection but not the examiner’s answer to be withdrawn by the examiner.
3
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