Appeal No. 2003-1873 Application 09/281,420 2002) as amended at 62 Fed. Reg. 53169 (October 10, 1997), which was controlling at the time of Appellants’ filing of the brief. 37 CFR § 1.192 (c)(7) states: Grouping of claims. For each ground of rejection which appellant contests and which applies to a group of two or more claims, the Board shall select a single claim from the group and shall decide the appeal as to the ground of rejection on the basis of that claim alone unless a statement is included that the claims of the group do not stand or fall together and, in the argument under paragraph (c)(8) of this section, appellant explains why the claims of the group are believed to be separately patentable. Merely pointing out differences in what the claims cover is not an argument as to why the claims are separately patentable. We will, thereby, consider Appellants’ claims as standing or falling together in the XXX groups noted above, and we will treat: Claim 24 as a representative claim of Group I; Claim 3 as a representative claim of Group II; and Claim 26 as a representative claim of Group III. If the brief fails to meet either requirement, the Board is free to select a single claim from each group and to decide the appeal of that rejection based solely on the selected representative 5Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007