Appeal No. 2003-0928 Page 8
Application No. 09/692,431
For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the examiner to reject claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is affirmed.
The obviousness rejection based on Law
We sustain the rejection of claims 2 and 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
In the final rejection (p. 2) and the answer (p. 4), the examiner set forth his
rationale as to why claims 2 and 4 were unpatentable over Law. Specifically, the
examiner ascertained that the base mast of Law (i.e., the support base upper end
portions 20 and 34) was not tapered as claimed but that such a modification would
have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person of ordinary skill in
the art.
The appellant has not specifically contested this rejection in the brief. Instead,
the appellant relies on the differences with respect to Law pointed out above with
respect to claim 1 (brief, p. 8). None of the differences with respect to Law pointed out
above with respect to claim 1 are recited in claims 2 and 4. Accordingly, the appellant
has not specifically set forth any argument as to why the subject matter of claims 2 and
4 is patentable over the teachings of Law. Accordingly, we summarily sustain the
rejection of claims 2 and 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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