Appeal No. 2002-0275
Application No. 09/215,752
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 8) and the Examiner’s Answer (Paper
No. 13) for a statement of the examiner’s position and to the Brief (Paper No. 12) and
the Reply Brief (Paper No. 14) for appellants’ position with respect to the claims which
stand rejected.
OPINION
Grouping of Claims
We will consider each of appellants’ arguments in turn, and select a
representative claim when appropriate. We base our selection of representative claims
on arguments submitted, rather than on the grouping of claims submitted at page 4 of
the Brief. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7). See also In re McDaniel, 293 F.3d 1379, 1383, 63
USPQ2d 1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (“If the brief fails to meet either requirement [of 37
CFR § 1.192(c)(7)], the Board is free to select a single claim from each group of claims
subject to a common ground of rejection as representative of all claims in that group
and to decide the appeal of that rejection based solely on the selected representative
claim.”).
Independent claims 1, 13, and 19
Appellants contend that the section 102 rejection of claims 1, 13, and 19 as being
anticipated by Maruyama is in error because the reference does not teach “identifying
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