Appeal No. 2002-0607
Application No. 09/258,138
Appellants’ invention pertains to a fuel injection valve.
A copy of the appealed claims is appended to appellants’ main
brief.
The references relied upon by the examiner in the final
rejection are:
Stumpp et al. (Stumpp) 4,589,596 May 20, 1986
Itoh et al. (Itoh) 4,966,120 Oct. 30, 1990
Berton et al. (Berton) 5,129,658 Jul. 14, 1992
Belshaw et al. (Belshaw) 5,345,913 Sep. 13, 1994
Sumida et al. (Sumida) 5,630,400 May 20, 1997
Dietrich et al. (Dietrich)1 DE 3,340,445 May 15, 1985
The appealed claims stand finally rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as follows:2
(1) claims 1 and 6, unpatentable over Sumida in view of
Dietrich;
1 Our understanding of this German language patent document is derived
in part from a translation thereof prepared by the Patent and Trademark
Office. A copy of that translation is attached to this decision.
2 In the “Grounds of Rejection” section on page 3 of the answer, we are
directed to the final rejection (Paper No. 7) for a statement of the grounds
of rejection. The final rejection (pages 2-3) in turn refers us to the first
office action (Paper No. 5) for the examiner’s rationale in rejecting the
claims. This practice of indirectly incorporating by reference more than one
prior office action in the answer does not comply with MPEP § 1208, which
provides that incorporation by reference may be made only to a single other
action, and that the examiner’s answer should not refer, either directly or
indirectly, to more than one prior office action. In the interest of judicial
economy, we shall, in this instance, proceed to decide the appeal on the
merits notwithstanding the examiner’s clear disregard for established Office
procedure in formulating the answer.
2
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