Appeal No. 2000-1833
Application 09/002,650
The appellant also proposes what appear to be conditional
claim amendments within the body of the main brief (see pages 8
through 11) in response to the 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph,
rejection.2 As this rejection is withdrawn, the issue of these
amendments is moot. We would nonetheless point out to the
appellant that the submission of amendments within a brief,
rather than in a separate paper, is improper (see MPEP § 1207)
and that it is not the normal practice of this Board to consider
proposed amendments (see MPEP § 1211.01).
II. The merits of the rejection
Adams, the examiner’s primary reference, discloses an
auxiliary towel rack designed for use with a conventional wall-
mounted towel rack to achieve additional towel hanging capacity.
The auxiliary rack consists of a single unitary piece of formed
rod material which is simple to construct, inexpensive to
manufacture and easy to use (see column 1, lines 42 through 51).
As described in more detail by Adams,
[t]he auxiliary towel rack . . . is composed of a
rod having a bar portion, a support portion at each end
of the bar portion, and an arm portion connected with
each of the support portions. The bar portion has a
length substantially nearly that of a bar of a
conventional barred towel holder so that it allows for
2 See n.1, supra.
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