Appeal No. 2002-2332 Application 09/220,293 sustain the anticipation rejection of any of the claims on appeal. Even if we were to sustain the rejection of independent claim 1, appellants have separately argued the dependent claims. The examiner has ignored appellants’ arguments in support of the separate patentability of the dependent claims. Therefore, we would still not sustain the examiner’s rejection of the dependent claims because the examiner has failed to respond to appellants’ arguments with respect to these claims. We now consider the rejection of claims 6-9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the teachings of Mullins in view of Ludwig. Since Mullins is deficient for reasons noted above, and since Ludwig does not overcome the deficiencies of Mullins, we also do not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 6-9. -6-Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007