Appeal No. 2002-0797
Application No. 08/900,977
rejection and answer. As a consequence of this review we
conclude that the standing rejection cannot be sustained. Our
reasons follow.
Our first difficulty with the standing Section 103(a)
rejection is that the examiner has not specifically stated the
difference or differences in claim 1 over the applied references,
and in particular Cook ‘785, as called for in MPEP Section
706.02(j). In this regard, although it would appear from the
examiner’s above quoted grounds of the rejection as found in the
final rejection that the examiner considers that Cook ‘785 does
not disclose a fluid flow control valve having the particular
frequency response characteristic called for in claim 1, portions
of the “Response to Argument” section of the answer imply that
the examiner actually relies on Cook ‘082 for a teaching of
operating the fluid flow control valve at a frequency that
renders the valve mechanism of the control valve incapable of
faithfully tracking the control signal. However, because the
appealed claims are directed to the combination of a fluid flow
control valve and a pressure regulator and not a method of
operating such a combination, the frequency of the control signal
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