Appeal No. 2001-2030
Application No. 08/874,046
Claims 1-6, 8-24, 26, 27 and 35-51 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. 103. As evidence of obviousness, the examiner cites
Bertsch and Guidette with regard to claims 1-3, 6, 8, 9, 21-24
and 27,1 adding Dykema to this combination with regard to claims
4, 5, 10-20, 26 and 35-51.
Reference is made to the briefs and answer for the
respective positions of appellants and the examiner.
OPINION
At the outset, we note that appellants have placed the
claims into three groups (principal brief-page 7):
I. Claims 1, 2, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 21, 22.
II. Claims 6, 8, 14, 20, 24.
III. Claims 3-5, 9, 12, 17-19, 23, 26, 27 and 35-51.
1The examiner includes claim 25 in this group in the
rejection but claim 25 is not on appeal in this case in
accordance with appellants’ grouping of the claims at page 7 of
the principal brief, appellants’ failure to include claim 25 in
the appendix of claims attached to the principal brief, the
cancellation of the claim in the amendment of December 6, 1999
and appellants’ omission of that claim in the listing of the
dependent claims which are deemed patentable at page 19 of the
principal brief. Moreover, the examiner agreed that the copy of
the appealed claims contained in the appendix to the principal
brief “is correct” [answer-page 3].
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