Appeal No. 2003-1406 Page 4
Application No. 09/335,723
Having carefully considered each of appellant’s arguments
set forth in the brief and reply brief, appellant has not
persuaded us of reversible error on the part of the examiner.
Accordingly, we will affirm the examiner’s rejection for
substantially the reasons set forth by the examiner in the
answer. We add the following for emphasis.
Appellant states that the appealed claims are “not grouped
separately for the purposes of the present appeal” (brief, page
5, item No. 7). Consequently, we select claim 18 as the
representative claim in deciding this appeal. See 37 CFR
§ 1.192(c)(7)(2000).
The element recited in representative claim 18 is defined at
least in part in terms of the process by which it is made. In
this regard, the element is formed by bonding a first edge of a
first segment to a second edge of a second segment as recited in
the representative claim. The bonding results in a finished
element that may have a shape as shown in appellant’s drawing
figure 3 as opposed to an unbonded blank with bifurcated segments
as shown in drawing figure 1. We note that representative claim
18 does not require that the shaped element have a triangular
wedged-shaped cutout as argued as a patentable distinction at
page 7 of the brief. When the claim does not recite allegedly
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