Appeal No. 2000-0451
Application No. 08/726,088
dependent claims 7 and 8 on appeal rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
102(b) over the Noiles patent. Finding no argument from
appellant as to the separate patentability of dependent claims
7 and 8, and no indication of any particular limitation in
those claims which appellant believed not to be present in the
prior art Noiles patent, we concluded that those claims would
fall with independent claim 6 from which they depend, the
rejection of which we had already sustained.
As for appellant's implication that our treatment of
dependent claim 8 was somehow incomplete or improper, we do
not agree. It has been a longstanding precept in patent law
that where an applicant argues a ground of rejection with
regard to less than all of the claims to which it applies, the
unargued claims are treated as standing or falling with the
claims which were argued. See In re Nielson, 816 F.2d 1567,
1572, 2 USPQ2d 1525, 1528 (Fed. Cir. 1987); In re Sernaker,
702 F.2d 989, 991, 217 USPQ 1, 3 (Fed. Cir. 1983); and In re
Wood, 582 F.2d 638, 642, 199 USPQ 137, 140 (CCPA 1978).
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