Appeal No. 2001-2168
Application No. 09/083,307
challenged the rejection of these claims with any
reasonable specificity, thereby allowing these claims to
fall with their respective parent claims. See In re
Nielson, 816 F.2d 1567, 1572, 2 USPQ 1525, 1528 (Fed. Cir.
1987). In fact, claim 22 is not mentioned in appellant’s
grouping of claims (see pages 4-5 of the main brief) or in
the argument section of appellant’s main brief or in
appellant’s reply brief. Claim 8 is mentioned only
indirectly by referring to the group (i.e., group 4)
containing claim 8 in part VI of the argument section of
the main brief (see page 11), which pertains to the
grouping of the appealed claims. Merely asserting that the
specific groups require “a separate analysis” as appellant
has done on page 11 of the main brief does not establish
why claim 8 would be patentable over the prior art
separately of claim 9. Moreover, such an assertion does
not challenge the rejection of claim 8 with the reasonable
specificity required by Nielson.
According to the section in appellant’s main brief
concerning the grouping of claims (see page 4), claims 5,
6, 10-17 and 23 have been grouped together by appellant for
determining the issue of patentability. This group of
9
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