Appeal No. 2001-1185 Application No. 08/915,597 Page 3 Claims 5 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sowles in view of Hatano and further in view of Azer. Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's answer (Paper No. 21, mailed September 27, 2000) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejections, and to appellants' brief (Paper No. 20, filed September 11, 2000) and reply brief (Paper No. 23, filed November 27, 2000) for appellants' arguments thereagainst. Only those arguments actually made by appellants have been considered in this decision. Arguments which appellants could have made but chose not to make in the brief have not been considered. See 37 CFR 1.192(a). OPINION In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have carefully considered the subject matter on appeal, the rejections advanced by the examiner, and the evidence of obviousness relied upon by the examiner as support for the rejections. We have, likewise, reviewed and taken into consideration, in reaching our decision, appellants' arguments set forth in the briefs along with thePage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007