Appeal No. 2001-0680
Application No. 09/141,637
understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of
exemplary claim 9, which is reproduced in the appendix to
appellant’s brief.
The references applied in the final rejection are:
Moore 186,264 Jan. 16, 1877
Luders 25,300 Dec. 20, 1883
(German Patent)
Hawkins 22,019 Oct. 3, 1896
(British Patent)
Ritter1 96,447 Oct. 16, 1922
(Swiss Patent)
Klinger 236,594 Mar. 15, 1984
(Austrian Patent)
The following rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are before us
for review:2
1Our understanding of this reference is derived from a
translation prepared in the PTO, a copy o which is attached to
this decision.
2On page 3 of the brief, the examiner has taken it upon
himself to decide that this merits panel of the Board should
select claim 9 as the representative claim in this appeal, and
that therefore it is not necessary for the examiner to include
the rejections of claims 1, 3, 4 and 8, or to list the Luders and
Klinger references additionally applied in these rejections, in
the answer. This is clearly improper. 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)
states that for each ground of rejection which appellant contests
and which applies to a group of two or more claims, the Board
shall select a single claim from the group and decide the appeal
as to that ground of rejection on the basis of that claim alone
unless appellant states that the claims do not stand or fall
together and provides appropriate arguments as to why the claims
do not stand or fall together. We know of no circumstances under
which the examiner should use this rule to “streamline” the
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