Appeal No. 2004-0363
Application 09/176,866
APPEALED SUBJECT MATTER
The examiner set forth five different grounds of rejection
for five different groups of claims.
According to the appellant (Brief, page 9):
With respect to the 35 [U.S.C.] [§] 102(b) rejection,
Claim 1 stands alone.
With respect to the 35 [U.S.C.] [§] 103(a) rejec-
tion[s], claims of 2-7, 9, and 15-20[]are to be
considered as a single group.
The various groups stand or fall separately. Within
the groups, the claims stand or fall separately.
The appellant, however, argues only the limitations of claims 1
and 15 separately in the manner consistent with 37 CFR
§ 1.192(c)(7) and (c)(8)(2002). Therefore, for purposes of this
appeal, we select one claim from each group of claims subject to
a common ground of rejection, i.e., claims 1, 2, 4, 15 and 19,
as representative of all claims in that group and decide the
propriety of the examiner’s five different rejections based
on those selected representative claims. See In re McDaniel,
293 F.3d 1379, 1383, 63 USPQ2d 1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
Claims 1, 2, 4, 15 and 19 are reproduced below:
1. A massage apparatus for massaging a human body,
comprising:
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007