Appeal No. 2002-1658
Application No. 08/922,339
32 over Steinberg, Wasilewski, McCarty, and Allen, nor of their
dependents, claims 4 through 9, 15 through 21, 25, 27, 29, and
31.
Regarding the rejection of claims 5, 6, 16 through 18, and
25 over Steinberg, Wasilewski, and Erickson, we note first that
a procedural error exists in that the rejected claims are
dependent claims whose independent claims were not rejected over
the same or a subset of the same references. As dependent claims
include all of the limitations of the claims from which they
depend, if the references satisfy the dependent claims, they must
also satisfy the independent claims from which they depend.
Going to the merits of the rejection, we cannot sustain the
rejection over Steinberg, Wasilewski, and Erickson because
Steinberg and Wasilewski fail to disclose the claimed key server,
as explained supra, and Erickson fails to cure this deficiency.
Accordingly, we will reverse the rejection of claims 5, 6, 16
through 18, and 25 over Steinberg, Wasilewski, and Erickson.
Similarly, dependent claims 8, 9, 20, 21, 29, and 31 should
not have been rejected over Steinberg and Wasilewski if the
independent claims are not considered to be satisfied by the two
references. As to the merits of the rejection, as previously
discussed, since Steinberg and Wasilewski fail to disclose the
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