Appeal No. 1999-2506
Application No. 08/545,254
THE REJECTION
Claims 7, 9, 10, 13, 15 through 20, 22 through 24, 26 through 28, 31through 38,
40 and 41 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hasegawa in
view of Palackal, Matsumoto and Brekner.2 3
OPINION
We have carefully considered all of the arguments advanced by the appellants and the
examiner and agree with the examiner essentially for the reasons set forth in the Answer that
the rejection of the claims under § 103(a) is well founded. Accordingly, we affirm this
rejection and add the following comments for emphasis.
As an initial matter the appellants state that, “[c]laims 7, 9, 10, 134 [sic, 13], 15-
24, 26-28, 31 and 33-41 will stand or fall independently of each other.” See Brief, page 5.
The only argument presented with respect to any of the dependent claims however, is a
recitation of the limitation of the claimed subject matter followed by the sentence, “[t]his
aspect of the present invention is neither disclosed nor suggested by any of the cited
2The rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first and second paragraphs have been withdrawn.
3Although Palackal has a publication date of December 14, 1994, subsequent to appellants’ priority
date, said priority date has not been perfected. Accordingly, Palackal is available as a reference. We further
note that a counterpart of Palackal has issued in the United States. See US Patent No. 5, 401,817 bearing a
filing date of May 20, 1993.
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