Appeal No. 2004-0118 Page 7
Application No. 09/214,663
From our perspective, Luigi anticipates the subject matter recited in claim 16, and
we will sustain the rejection. The like rejection of claims 17 and 18 also is sustained,
since the appellant has chosen to group them with claim 16.
In arriving at the above conclusions, we have carefully considered all of the
appellant’s arguments, as they pertain to the claims whose rejections we have
sustained. However, with regard to these claims, the arguments have not convinced us
that the decision of the examiner was in error. It is true that the examiner did not
specify - element by element - each and every limitation recited in each of the claims.
However, the appellant did not argue the separate patentability of each of the fifteen
claims on appeal, but in fact provided arguments only with regard to “in the region of the
weld seam,” which appears in claims 1 and 15 of Group I, “integrally formed,” which
appears in claims 2 and 10 of Group II, “separate components,” which appears in claims
3 and 11, and the structure of the stays, which is recited in claim 16 of Group IV
(Corrected Brief, pages 6-11; Reply Brief, pages 3-5). It is our view that the examiner’s
position regarding where the limitations are found in Luigi is readily discernible from the
statement of the rejection and the responses to the appellant’s arguments which appear
in the final rejection (Paper No. 24) and the Answer, considered with Luigi’s disclosure
and drawings. With regard to the allegations in the Reply Brief regarding the examiner’s
failure to point out the “recess” of claims 12-14 or the “tenon” of claims
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