Appeal No. 2001-2526
Application No. 08/823,183
and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura in
view of McJohnson further in view of Abe.
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. 23, mailed Apr. 11, 2001) for the examiner's reasoning in support of
the rejections, and to appellants’ brief (Paper No. 22, filed Dec. 26, 2000) and reply
brief (Paper No. 24, filed May 22, 2001) for appellants’ 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 make the determinations which follow.
With respect to independent claim 1, the examiner maintains that Nakamura
teaches the basic system of the claimed invention, but does not teach the use of a
transparent plate used with the imaging system and the optical imaging device directed
upwardly at the marking carrier mounted on the carrier to form a visual link through the
transparent plate. The examiner maintains that McJohnson teaches the use of a
barcode reading device for objects mounted on a carrier which are undergoing
machining operations. Additionally, the examiner maintains that a transparent plate is
3
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