Appeal No. 2002-0418
Application No. 08/872,836
Claims 21, 23, 25-30 and 35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Breed. Claims 1, 2, 4-13, 15-20, 22, 24, 31-35,1 and 36-40 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Breed in view of
Tsuchiya.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
rejection (Paper No. 17, mailed Jul. 3, 2000) and the examiner's answer (Paper No. 22,
mailed Apr. 3, 2001) for the examiner's reasoning in support of the rejections, and to
appellants’ brief (Paper No. 21, filed Jan. 16, 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.
At the outset, we note that we are unclear as to appellants' groupings of the
claims. Appellants indicate there are three issues: “A,” “B,” and “C.” (See brief at
1 We note that the examiner also includes claim 35 in this rejection . We interpret this to be a
typographical error and should be claim 34 since claim 35 is rejected under 35 USC § 102.
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007