Appeal No. 2003-1639 Page 2
Application No. 09/496,220
The appellants' invention relates to an apparatus for transferring sample carriers
and a method for presenting and retrieving sample carriers (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:
Garrett 4,558,984 Dec. 17, 1985
Sullivan et al. (Sullivan) 5,004,399 Apr. 2, 1991
Shiraiwa 5,203,445 Apr. 20, 1993
Claims 1, 3, 4, 11, 13, 15 and 18 to 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Shiraiwa in view of Garrett.1
Claims 2, 5, 6, 18, 21 and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Shiraiwa in view of Garrett and Sullivan.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
the appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the final
rejection (Paper No. 26, mailed September 24, 2002) and the answer (Paper No. 29,
1 Dependent claims 3 and 4 depend either directly or indirectly from dependent claim 2. Since
claim 2 is not included in this ground of rejection it appears that claims 3 and 4 should also not be included
in this ground of rejection but should have been included in the next ground of rejection which is applicable
to claim 2.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007