Appeal No. 2003-0087 3
Application No. 09/512,164
(3) Claims 9, 10 and 18, rejected as being unpatentable over Fontaine in view of
Pierce, and further in view of Graham.
Reference is made to appellants’ main and reply briefs (Paper Nos. 10½ and 13)
and to the examiner’s final rejection and answer (Paper Nos. 5 and 12) for the respective
positions of appellants and the examiner regarding the merits of these rejections.
In the main brief (page 5), appellants have chosen to have the claims on appeal
considered in the following groups: Group I (claims 1, 5, 8, 12 and 15-17)3; Group II
(claims 2 and 13); Group III (claims 3 and 14); Group IV (claim 4); Group V (claims 6 and
74); and Group VI (claims 9, 10 and 18). In accordance with 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7), we
select claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9 for review, infra, and will decide the appeal as to each of
the respective specified groupings on the basis thereof.
Discussion
Claim 1
At the outset, we observe that in proceeding before it, the PTO applies to the
verbiage of claims the broadest reasonable meaning of the words in their ordinary usage
as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, taking into account
3Appellants’ claim grouping on page 5 of the main brief does not include claim 5
in any of the listed groups. We have included claim 5 is Group I since it depends from
base claim 1 and has not been separably argued in either appellants’ main brief or reply
brief.
4It appears that claim 7 should depend from claim 6 rather than claim 5 is order
to provide a proper antecedent for the “sealing means” of claim 7.
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