Appeal No. 2003-0494
Application No. 09/176,012
Claims 3 through 5, 8, 13, 22 and 28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Honda in view of Sormunen and well known prior art.
Claims 17 through 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Honda in view of well known prior art.
Opinion
We have carefully considered the subject matter on appeal, the rejections
advanced by the examiner and the evidence of obviousness relied upon by the
examiner as support for the rejections. We have, likewise, reviewed and taken into
consideration, in reaching our decision, the appellants’ arguments set forth in the brief2
along with the examiner’s rationale in support of the rejections and arguments in
rebuttal set forth in the examiner’s answer.
With full consideration being given to the subject matter on appeal, the
examiner’s rejections and the arguments of appellants and examiner, for the reasons
stated infra we reverse the examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through 14 and 23 through
29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We affirm the examiner’s rejection of claims 15, 16 and 20
under 35 U.S.C. § 102 and the examiner’s rejection of claims 17 through 19, 21 and 22
under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Grouping of the Claims
At the outset we, we note that appellants state on page 10 the brief that
2This decision is based upon the Appeal Brief received May 24, 2002.
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