Appeal No. 2002-1633
Application 09/281,093
any recognized definition of the term “pick up,” or a convincing
line of reasoning, which supports this proposition.
Therefore, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) rejection of claims 6, 8, 9, 14, 16 and 17.
II. The 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 3, 4, 7, 10
through 13, 15, 18 and 19
We shall sustain the standing 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of
dependent claims 3 and 4 as being unpatentable over Stevenson
since the appellants, stating that these claims stand or fall
together with parent claim 1 (see page 7 in the main brief), have
not separately challenged the merits thereof.
Claims 7 and 15, which respectively depend from claims 6 and
14, further define the pick up arm recited in these parent claims
as a “vacuum arm employing vacuum pressure to retrieve the sample
chips.” Conceding that Stevenson does not respond to these
limitations, the examiner (see pages 3 and 4 in the final
rejection and pages 8 through 11 in the answer) takes official
notice that vacuum end effectors are well known in the art and
concludes that it would have been obvious to substitute same into
the Stevenson apparatus, presumably in place of the pushing tines
16, “in order to be able to lift the sample chips, so as to avoid
the need for a continuous, smooth surface between the supply bins
7
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