Appeal No. 2004-0906
Application No. 09/571,896
group the claims in four groups (Brief, page 4).1 Appellants have
presented reasonably specific, substantive reasons for the separate
patentability of claims 1, 4, 7 and 8 (i.e., one claim from each
grouping; see the Brief, pages 6-13). Therefore, to the extent
each claim has been argued, we consider claims 1, 4, 7 and 8
separately. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(2000) and In re McDaniel,
293 F.3d 1379, 1383, 63 USPQ2d 1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
Representative independent claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. An elevator system comprising:
a pair of elevator car guide rails that is supported by and
is substantially parallel planar to a single wall;
a separate counterweight guide rail supported by and adjacent
to the single wall and spaced laterally from said elevator car
guides rails;
an elevator car mounted for movement along said elevator
car guide rails in a first path; and
a counterweight mounted for movement along said counterweight
guide rail in a second path, the first path of said elevator car
and the second path of said counterweight being oriented laterally
and parallel to one another along the single wall.
1We note that claim 10 appears in two groups, i.e., Groups I
and III. This error is harmless in view of our consideration of
the claims as discussed below.
2
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