Appeal No. 2000-1003
Application No. 08/631,465
Claims 1, 2, 4-8, 12, 13, 15-18, 20, 22-25, 27, 29, 30, 32
and 34 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Mosely in view of Barnes,3 Hoshino, Ito and
Bowen.
Claim 9-11, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28, 31 and 33 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Mosely,
Barnes, Hoshino, Ito and Bowen, as applied above, and further in
view of Shiraishi.
As indicated on page 5 of the brief and discussed more fully
below, certain of the appealed claims have been separately
grouped and argued by the appellants. It follows that we will
individually consider each of these separately grouped and argued
claims. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(1998).
3
3 As set forth in the answer, the statement of this
rejection includes Barnes as one of the applied references.
However, the appellants correctly point out in the brief and the
examiner concedes in the answer that the Barnes reference was not
included in the statement of this rejection as expressed in the
final Office action, although Barnes was discussed in the body of
the rejection. It is apparent that the failure to include Barnes
in the rejection statement of the final Office action was
occasioned by inadvertent error on the examiner’s part. We need
not consider whether the examiner’s error and his reliance on
Barnes in the answer frustrate the appellants’ right to
administrative due process. This is because our disposition of
the appeal before us is such that we need not and therefore do
not consider the Barnes reference.
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