Appeal No. 2002-1006
Application 09/132,351
For each ground of rejection which [A]ppellant contests
and which applies to a group of two or more claims, the
Board shall select a single claim from the group and shall
decide the appeal as to the ground of rejection on the basis
of that claim alone unless a statement is included that the
claims of the group do not stand or fall together and, in
the argument under paragraph (c)(8) of this section,
[A]ppellant explains why the claims of the group are
believed to be separately patentable. Merely pointing out
differences in what the claims cover is not an argument as
to why the claims are separately patentable.
Furthermore, note that claims 1 and 9 are rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 102. We will, thereby, consider the Appellant’s
claims 1 and 9 as standing or falling together and we will treat
claim 1 as a representative claim of that group. See also In re
McDaniel, 293 F.3d 1379, 1383, 63 USPQ2d 1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir.
2002) (“If the brief fails to meet either requirement [of 37 CFR
§ 1.192 (c)(7)], the Board is free to select a single claim from
each group of claims subject to a common ground of rejection as
representative of all claims in that group and to decide the
appeal of that rejection based solely on the selected
representative claim.”)
Appellant argues in the brief and the reply brief that
Sanders fails to teach a “group identifier” that is a “separately
defined field” as recited in Appellant’s claim 1. Appellant
argues that Sanders teaches directing messages to a single pre-
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