Appeal No. 2003-1650
Application No. 09/411,106
Examiner were occasioned by inadvertent oversight. Regardless of
their origin, these omissions have obfuscated to an unacceptable
extent the status of the aforenoted rejections and claims on the
record of this appeal.
In light of the foregoing, the Examiner must respond to this
remand by clarifying the application file record with respect to
the status of each of the rejections and claims discussed above.
As previously indicated, the Examiner in her answer has failed
to respond to many of the arguments advanced by the Appellants in
their brief. In response to this remand, the Examiner must rebut
each and every argument presented in the brief with respect to each
and every rejection of each and every claim which ultimately is
maintained by the Examiner. We here note that the Examiner
seems confused regarding the issue of claim grouping and argument
vis-à-vis the separate consideration of an individual claim.
For purposes of clarification, we point out that an Examiner is
required to give separate consideration to an individual claim
when an Appellant (1) merely states that the claims are grouped
separately and (2) presents a separate, specific argument regarding
the individual claim. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(8)(2003) as well as
Ex parte Schier, 21 USPQ2d 1016, 1018 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1991)
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