Appeal No. 2000-1389
Application No. 08/949,826
Claims 19 and 21 through 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as being unpatentable over Santin.
Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Santin.
Reference is made to the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 23,
mailed December 8, 1999) for the examiner's complete reasoning in
support of the rejections, and to appellants' Brief (Paper
No. 22, filed November 4, 1999) and Reply Brief (Paper No. 25,
filed January 13, 2000) for appellants' arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
We have carefully considered the claims, the applied prior
art reference, and the respective positions articulated by
appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we
will reverse the rejection of claims 8 through 13 and 24 under
35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, also reverse both the
anticipation rejection of claims 19 and 21 through 23 and the
obviousness rejection of claim 20.
Before we can decide the propriety of the rejection of the
claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, we should
determine whether the amendments to the specification and
drawings constitute new matter. Specifically, the examiner
objects to two changes to the specification: amending "less" to
"more" on page 5, line 20, and on page 6, line 10, and amending
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