Appeal No. 2003-2176
Application No. 09/778,460
CITED PRIOR ART
As evidence of unpatentability, the Examiner relies on the following
references:
Erdeljac et al. (Erdeljac) 5,489,547 Feb. 06, 1996
Inaba 5,877,536 Mar. 02, 1999
Kim 6,246,084 Jun. 12, 2001
THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 2 and 4 to 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combined teachings of Erdeljac and Inaba; and claims 2, 3, 7
and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combined teachings
of Erdeljac, Inaba and Kim. (Answer, pp. 3-4).
Appellant has indicated (Brief, page 5) that, for the purposes of this appeal,
claims 2 to 6 stand or fall together and claims 7 to 10 stand or fall together.
Appellant’s grouping of the claims does not comply with 37 CFR § 1.192
(c)(7)(2001).2 Therefore, for each ground of rejection, we will select a claim as
representative of the rejected subject matter and limit our consideration thereto. See
In re McDaniel, 293 F.3d 1379, 1383, 63 USPQ2d 1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir.
2 Appellant’s proposed groups are not exclusive. The claims 7, 8 and 9 are not subject to the same
rejections.
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