Appeal No. 2003-1551
Application No. 09/550,713
Mitsutake at column 7, lines 5-8. Therefore, method claims 7 and
9 would have been obvious over the collective teachings of
Mitsutake and the admitted prior art for the reasons discussed
above.
We have limited our consideration to independent claims
1, 7 and 9. We leave it to the examiner to decide whether
similar rejections can be appropriately made for the dependent
claims.
In summary, we have not sustained the examiner’s
rejection of claims 1-10. We have entered a new rejection of
claims 1, 7 and 9 under 37 CFR §41.50(b).
This decision contains a new ground of rejection pursuant
to 37 CFR §41.50(b)(amended effective September 13, 2003, by
final rule notice 69 Fed. Reg. 49,960, (August 12, 2004), 1286
Off. Gaz. Pat. & Trademark Office 21 (September 7, 2004)). 37
CFR § 41.50(b) provides that “A new ground of rejection...shall
not be considered final for judicial review.”
37 CFR § 41.50(b) also provides that the appellant,
WITHIN TWO MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THE DECISION, must exercise
one of the following two options with respect to the new ground
of rejection to avoid termination of the appeal as
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