Appeal No. 2001-2288
Application 09/175,570
and distinctly claim the subject matter the appellant regards
as the invention.
Claims 1, 2, 6 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) as being unpatentable over Snider in view of McQueen.
Claim 11 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Snider in view of McQueen and Ollier.
Attention is directed to the appellant’s briefs (Paper
Nos. 19 and 21) and to the action appealed from and the
examiner’s answer (Paper Nos. 15 and 20) for the respective
positions of the appellant and the examiner with regard to the
merits of these rejections.1
DISCUSSION
1Although the examiner’s answer did not restate the 35
U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, rejection, the comments on
page 8 thereof indicate that the omission was inadvertent.
Also, contrary to the assertions made throughout the
appellant’s reply brief, the above 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
rejections are not new grounds of rejection entered for the
first time in the examiner’s answer. These rejections have a
clear basis in the action appealed from (Paper No. 15).
Finally, the action appealed from also contains a 35 U.S.C. §
102(b) based on U.S. Patent No. 4,709,503 to McQueen and a 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection utilizing the McQueen ‘503 patent as
the primary reference. Upon reconsideration (see page 4 in
the answer), the examiner has withdrawn these rejections.
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007