Appeal No. 2000-0328
Application No. 08/863,345 Page 3
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by
the examiner and appellant regarding the above-noted rejection,
we make reference to the examiner's answer (Paper No. 14, mailed
March 2, 1999) and the advisory action (Paper No. 8, mailed July
14, 1998) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the
rejection, and to appellant's brief (Paper No. 12, filed
September 4, 1998) and reply brief (Paper No. 15, filed March 19,
1999) for appellant's arguments thereagainst. Only those
arguments actually made by appellant have been considered in this
decision. Arguments which appellant could have made but chose
not to make in the brief have not been considered. See 37 CFR
1.192(a). Under the heading of "Grouping of Claims" (brief,
pages 7 and 8) it is asserted that "appellant considers
independent claims 1 and 20 to be separately patentable from the
prior art and from one another and further considers claims 2 and
21 to be separately patentable respectively from claims 1 and 20
from which they depend." However, in the substantive portion of
an amended brief to address the examiner's reliance on Drori, and the
examiner's position is explained in the advisory action and the "Remarks"
section of the examiner's answer, we decline to remand the case to the
examiner for formal inclusion of Drori in the statement of the rejection.
3 In the answer (page 3) that examiner additionally lists references to
Chen, Carlo et al, Johnson, Wu, Winner, and Elmer as being relied upon in the
rejection of claims under appeal. However, we find no reliance on any of
these references in either the examiner's answer or the final rejection.
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