Appeal No. 2001-1350 Application No. 09/188,766 Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the APA in view of Isaji as applied above, and further in view of Official Notice. Rather than attempt to reiterate the examiner's full commentary with regard to the above-noted rejections and the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and appellants regarding those rejections, we make reference to the final rejection (Paper No. 11, mailed January 19, 2000) and examiner's answer (Paper No. 14, mailed October 23, 2000) for the reasoning in support of the rejections, and to appellants' brief (Paper No. 13, filed July 17, 2000) and reply brief (Paper No. 15, filed December 21, 2000) for the arguments thereagainst. OPINION In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to appellants' specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we have made the determinations which follow. 33Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007