Appeal No. 2001-1692
Application No. 09/116,338
Overton et al. (Overton) 4,913,859 Apr. 3, 1990
Petisce 5,037,763 Aug. 6, 1991
Bonicel et al. (Bonicel) 5,763,003 Jun. 9, 1998
The Examiner entered the following rejections of claims 1 to 8 in the Final Rejection:
Claims 1 to 4, 7 and 8 are rejected as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
the combination of Tokuda and Tanaka. Claims 1 to 4 are rejected as unpatentable under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Bonicel. Claim 5 is rejected as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over either Tanaka or Tokuda in combination with Overton. Claim 6 is
rejected as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combination of Tokuda,
Tanaka and Petisce. (Final Rejection, pp. 3 and 4.)
Appellants have indicated that the claims 1 to 8 stand or fall together. (Brief, page 5).
Accordingly, we select claim 1, the sole independent claim, from the group of rejected claims
and decide this appeal as to the Examiner’s grounds of rejection on the basis of this claim
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alone. In re Nielson, 816 F.2d 1567, 1572, 2 USPQ2d 1525, 1528 (Fed. Cir. 1987); Ex
parte Ohsumi, 21 USPQ2d 1020, 1023 (Bd. of Pat. Appls. and Int. 1991); 37 CFR §
1.192(c)(7)(1997). Thus, the issues on appeal are (1) whether claim 1 is unpatentable under
1The Examiner has limited his discussion to claim 1 based upon the Appellants’ statement in
the Brief. (Answer, p. 3.)
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