Appeal No. 2001-1478
Application No. 08/853,539
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
final rejection (Paper No. 17, mailed June 7, 2000) and the examiner’s answer (Paper
No. 22, mailed Dec. 22, 2000) for the examiner's reasoning in support of the rejections,
and to appellants' brief (Paper No. 20, filed Dec. 7, 2000) and reply brief (Paper No. 23,
filed Feb. 22, 2001) for appellants' arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellants' specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
At the outset, we note that appellants indicate that the claims do not stand or fall
together and that separate grounds of patentability exist with respect to other claims
and identify the argument section as setting forth the separate arguments. (See brief at
page 3.) Therefore, we will address the claims as specifically set forth in the
arguments.
Initially, we note that appellants have not included any arguments to
independent claims 26 and 29. Therefore, we will group these claims with independent
claim 1. Additionally, we note that appellants only address the language of
3
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