Appeal No. 2002-0998
Application 09/296,139
claims 1 and 9 are representative of the subject matter on appeal
and a copy of those claims can be found in the Appendix to
appellants’ brief.
The prior art references relied upon by the examiner in
rejecting the appealed claims are:
McGouran Jr. (McGouran) 4,911,326 Mar. 27, 1990
Wagner 5,234,286 Aug. 10, 1993
Sabo 5,806,702 Sep. 15, 1998
In the final rejection (Paper No. 15), claims 1 through 3, 5
through 7 and 9 through 14 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Sabo in view of McGouran, while claims
8, 16 and 17 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Sabo, McGouran and Wagner.
In the answer, the examiner notes (page 2) that the
rejection of claims 1-3, 5-14, 16 and 17 stand or fall together,
but only repeats the rejection of claims 1 through 3, 5 through 7
and 9 through 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).1
1 While the examiner has not expressly repeated all of the
rejections applicable to the claims before us on appeal in the
examiner’s answer (Paper No. 18), it is clear from a review of
(continued...)
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