Appeal No. 2001-1995
Application 08/646,567
appear to be merely cursory responses which fail to address
any/all of the arguments made by appellants in the principal
brief on appeal as to each of the four separately stated art
rejections of the claims on appeal. The examiner has in effect
not presented for our benefit any substantive response to the 27
pages of argument presented in the principal brief on appeal.
As indicated earlier, the last complete statement of any
rejection of the claims on appeal occurred in Paper No. 11 mailed
on December 10, 1999. At page 3 thereof the examiner took
Official Notice "that it was well known to use either the address
bus or the data bus to transmit the polling message." Appellant
challenges this assertion at pages 14-16 of the principal brief
on appeal. Regarding the assertion that the examiner's belief
that a data bus and an address bus are interchangeable, appellant
requested citation of evidence showing the interchangeability
under MPEP § 2144.03 at the top of page 15 of the principal brief
on appeal. The answer does not address this assertion or the
requirements placed upon the examiner by the noted MPEP section.
Our reviewing court has made it clear in In re Lee, 277 F.3d
1338, 61 USPQ2d 1430 (Fed. Cir. 2002), and In re Zurko, 111 F.3d
887, 42 USPQ2d 1476 (Fed. Cir. 1997), that rejections must be
supported by substantial evidence in the administrative record
and that where the record is lacking in evidence, this Board
cannot and should not resort to unsupported speculation. As
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