Appeal No. 1999-1326
Application No. 08/413,294
We leave to the examiner, in the first instance, to determine whether claim 1
and possibly other claims pending in the application are subject to rejection based
on the disclosure of Horlack. Such a determination should begin with an
interpretation of each of the claims. We note, for example, that claim 1 requires that
the pouch be capable of holding a “reagent strip” having a flat configuration. It is not
readily apparent whether the “reagent pad” required by claims 3 and 4 must also
have a flat configuration. To the extent that the examiner determines that the
reagent pad of claims 3 and 4 do not have to be in a flat configuration, the
disclosure of Horlack, which would appear to describe a swab type pad, may also
be relevant to the patentability of these claims. It is this type of claim analysis which
is necessary to appropriately determine whether there is reasonable basis for
rejecting the claims of the application.
SUMMARY
The examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1 – 16 is reversed.
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