Appeal No. 2004-0367
Application No. 09/733,359
Rather than reiterate the examiner's full statement of the
above-noted rejections and the conflicting viewpoints advanced by
the examiner and appellant regarding those rejections, we make
reference to the examiner's answer (Paper No. 15, mailed July 2,
2003) for the examiner's reasoning in support of the rejections1,
and to appellant's brief (Paper No. 14, filed March 12, 2003) and
reply brief (Paper No. 16, filed August 18, 2003) for appellant's
arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given
careful consideration to appellant's specification and claims, to
the applied prior art references, and to the respective positions
1 MPEP § 1208 states, in part, that examiners may
incorporate in the answer their statement of the grounds of
rejection merely by reference to the final rejection or a single
other action on which it is based, and clearly indicates that
only those statements of grounds of rejection appearing in a
single prior action may be incorporated by reference. Therefore,
an examiner's answer should not refer, either directly or
indirectly, to more than one prior Office action. The examiner's
answer in this case, with its references to plural prior actions
(answer, page 4) clearly does not comply with the foregoing
requirements.
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