Appeal No. 2003-0583
Application No. 09/270,688
the claims cover is not an argument as to why the
claims are separately patentable.
We will, thereby, consider Appellants' claims 1, 4, 6-16 and 20-
29 as standing or falling together and we will treat claim 1 as a
representative claim of that group. In addition, we will
consider Appellants' claims 17-19 as standing or falling together
and we will treat claim 17 as a representative claim of that
group. See also In re McDaniel, 293 F.3d 1379, 1383, 63 USPQ2d
1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir. 2002) ("If the brief fails to meet either
requirement [of 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)], the Board is free to
select a single claim from each group of claims subject to a
common ground of rejection as representative of all claims in
that group and to decide the appeal of that rejection based
solely on the selected representative claim.")
We will first address the rejection of claim 1 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Sundman and Garuet-
Lempirou. In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the
Examiner bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie
case of obviousness. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445,
24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992). See also In re Piasecki,
745 F.2d 14687, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984). The
Examiner can satisfy this burden by showing that some objective
teaching in the prior art or knowledge generally available to one
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