Appeal No. 2002-2083
Application No. 09/430,642
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
answer (Paper No. 18, mailed March 25, 2002) for the examiner's reasoning in support
of the rejections, and to appellants’ brief (Paper No. 17, filed Feb. 6, 2002) for the
appellants’ arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
At the outset, we note that appellants have elected to group all the pending
claims as standing or falling together. (See brief at page 3.) Yet, appellants have
provided separate arguments for dependent claims 7 and 10. In fairness to appellants,
we will address these two claims separately from independent claim 9.
35 U.S.C. § 102
To the extent that the rejection may be based on the principles of inherency, we
note that our reviewing court has set out clear standards for a showing of inherency,
which we find have been attained in the instant case. To establish inherency, the
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