Appeal No. 2001-0678
Application No. 08/877,711
amended claims and, if the case is eventually passed to issue, a
stronger patent will result. If, after full and deliberate
consideration, the examiner agrees that the amendment does,
indeed, place the claims in condition for allowance, the examiner
can readily allow the claims. On the other hand, if the examiner
decides otherwise, and the case returns to this Board on appeal,
we will have a complete record, with the full reasoning of both
appellants and the examiner before us, and a more reasoned
decision can be made based on such reasoning.
Appellants also request that if we should decline the
admission of the proposed amendment, then “further clarification
concerning the motivation needed to justify the suggested
modifications or combinations of references necessary to maintain
the rejections” [Request for Rehearing-page 2] is sought.
Since, in our view, we provided sufficient “motivation
needed to justify the suggested modifications” in our decision,
it is not clear to us what “further clarification” appellants
seek. For example, the rejection of claim 1 was sustained based
on Sharrard, alone, after concluding that the claim did not
preclude the operator and the person from being the same
individual. Accordingly, no modification of the reference, or
motivation to combine, was necessary. For other claims, e.g.,
-3–
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