Appeal No. 2002-1822 Application No. 09/197,164 Rather than reiterate the examiner's full commentary with regard to the above-noted rejections and the conflicting viewpoints advanced by appellant and the examiner regarding those rejections, we make reference to the examiner's answer (Paper No. 14, mailed February 8, 2002) for the reasoning in support of the rejections2, and to appellant's brief (Paper No. 13, filed January 15, 2002) and reply brief (Paper No. 15, filed April 15, 2002) for the arguments thereagainst. OPINION In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the respective positions articulated by appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we have made the determinations which follow. 2 While the examiner's answer (page 11) appears to make note of an appeal conference being held, we observe that the conferees have not initialed next to the typed indication of the conferees initials in the examiner's answer as required in MPEP § 1208, which indicates that the typed or printed names of the conferees should appear on the answer below the primary examiner's signature and that the conferees "must place their initials next to their name." 44Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007