Appeal No. 2004-0820
Application No. 09/317,312 Page 4
has not been included in any of the rejections by the examiner.
Upon further review of the application, we find that claim 16 has
never been rejected. Claim 16 was added in an amendment filed
subsequent to the first, or non-final, Office action (Paper No.
5, filed November 26, 2002). In the final rejection that
followed, claim 16 was not included in any of the rejections, or
referred to in the examiner's remarks. Appellant, in their
responses, have not noted the fact that claim 16 does not appear
in any of the rejections, in any of the examiner's Office
actions. As we are not aware of the ground of rejection applied
against claim 16, we conclude that claim 16 is not before us on
appeal. Accordingly, in our decision, infra, we address the
rejection of claims 1-15, 17 and 18, which are before us for
decision on appeal, and REMAND the application to the examiner,
to address the merits of claim 16, subsequent to this appeal.
We turn next to the rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-7, and 11-15
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being unpatentable over Glaser. We
begin with claim 1.
To anticipate a claim, a prior art reference must disclose
every limitation of the claimed invention, either explicitly or
inherently. In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473, 1477, 44 USPQ2d
1429, 1431 (Fed. Cir. 1997). As stated in In re Oelrich, 666
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