Appeal No. 2003-0809 Page 2
Application No. 09/761,296
BACKGROUND
The appellants' invention relates generally to stocker apparatus, as employed
within multi-step manufacturing processes (specification, p. 1). A copy of the claims
under appeal is set forth in the appendix to the appellants' brief.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the
appealed claims are:
Asakawa 4,986,715 Jan. 22, 1991
Endo et al. (Endo) 5,971,696 Oct. 26, 1999
Claims 1 to 4, 6 to 11, 13 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Asakawa in view of Endo.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
the appellants regarding the above-noted rejection, we make reference to the answer
(Paper No. 10, mailed December 3, 2002) for the examiner's complete reasoning in
support of the rejection, and to the brief (Paper No. 9, filed September 17, 2002) for the
appellants' arguments thereagainst.1
1 The rejection of claims 10, 11, 13 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, made in the
final rejection was withdrawn by the examiner in the answer.
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