Appeal No. 2004-1174
Application No. 09/470,793
position, and that "[c]laims 2-11 and 13-17 are dependent from an
allowable base claim and thus are considered to be patentable for
the above reasons of record."1 Accordingly, since appellant has
not presented a substantive argument against the § 103 rejection,
all the appealed claims stand or fall together with claim 1.
Hence, we will limit our consideration to the examiner's § 102
rejection of claim 1.
We have thoroughly reviewed each of appellant's arguments
for patentability. However, we are in complete agreement with
the examiner that the claimed subject matter is unpatentable over
the cited prior art. Accordingly, we will sustain the examiner's
rejections for the reasons set forth in the Answer, and we add
the following for emphasis only.
Appellant does not dispute the examiner's factual
determination that Abuto discloses the claimed structure
comprising an absorbing core intermediate top and coating layers
wherein the core comprises three or more longitudinally extending
substantially independent absorbing panels that are separated in
the transverse dimension by channels, and further wherein the top
and coating layers are sealed together in the channels between
1 Only claims 1, 2, 5-11 and 14-17 are currently pending and
on appeal.
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