Appeal No. 2002-1022
Application 09/326,934
As noted on page 12 of the brief, appellants have grouped
dependent claims 3 and 5 with claim 1, indicating with regard to
the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) that claims 1, 3 and 5
“shall stand or fall with the patentability of claim 1.” We
therefore also sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 3 and 5
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) based on Andersen.
Looking now to Yamamoto, we note that this patent discloses
a physical reel slot machine like that generally defined in claim
1 on appeal and, as seen in Figures 1 through 4 of the patent,
includes a plurality of reels or rotary members, each in the form
of an endless belt (34) that carries symbols (not shown)
associated with the reel slot game on an outer surface thereof.
In addition, the endless belts each have perforations (36)
provided along the opposite edges to allow driving thereof by
sprocket wheels (32). While the examiner directs us to Figure 2
of Yamamoto for reels that have “actual, physical borders on the
reels that surround the symbols, characters, or alphanumerics
that are on the reels” (answer, page 9), we find no such showing
in Figure 2, or any other figure, of Yamamoto. Consequently, we
must agree with appellants that there is absolutely no disclosure
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