Appeal No. 2001-2639 Page 3
Application No. 09/386,753
the examiner neglected to designate them as such, rejection
(2), as applied to claim 7, and rejection (3) are, in fact,
new grounds of rejection which are expressly prohibited in an
examiner’s answer by 37 CFR § 1.193(a)(2). Nevertheless, as
appellants have not objected to the entry of new grounds of
rejection in the answer by petition under 37 CFR § 1.181 and1
have presented arguments against the new grounds of rejection
in the reply brief, we shall decide the appeal of the
rejections set forth in the answer.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced
by the examiner and the appellants regarding the above-noted
rejections, we make reference to the answer (Paper No. 12) for
the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejections
and to the brief and reply brief (Paper Nos. 11 and 13) for
the appellants’ arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given
careful consideration to the appellants’ specification and
claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
1See Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 1208.01.
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