Appeal No. 2002-1511
Application No. 09/026,936
Claims 1-5, 8-131, 16, and 24-30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102 as being
anticipated by Barratt. Claims 6, 7, 14, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Barratt in view of Przelomiec.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellant regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
answer (Paper No. 16, mailed Apr. 10, 2001) for the examiner's reasoning in support of
the rejections, and to appellant's brief2 (Paper No. 12, filed Aug. 14, 2000), appellant's
supplemental brief (Paper No. 15, filed Feb. 7, 2001) and reply brief (Paper No. 17, filed
Jun. 6, 2001 ) for appellant's arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
1 We note that the examiner made a rejection under 35 USC § 112, second paragraph in the
most recent non final rejection (Paper No. 13, mailed Nov. 3, 2000), but only inferentially mentions the
rejection at page 5 of the answer. While we do note that there appears to be a formal problem with the
structural limitation and a lack of antecedent basis, the examiner has not set forth a rejection in the answer
for our review. Therefore, we leave it to the examiner to consider this issue when the application is
returned to the examiner.
2 We note that the examiner reopened prosecution and modified the rejection to be over Barratt
rather than the Dent reference. Appellant reinstated the appeal after the new rejection. We note that the
supplemental brief does not meet all of the requirements of 37 CFR § 1.192, but we will consider the
combination of briefs as meeting the requirements. Therefore, we refer to the supplemental brief for the
arguments and only refer to the brief for the formal requirements.
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