Appeal No. 2004-1266
Application No. 09/997, 745
CITED PRIOR ART
As evidence of unpatentability, the Examiner relies on the following prior art:
Lee et al. (Lee) 6,056,279 May 02, 2000
THE REJECTION
The Examiner entered the following rejections:
The Examiner rejected claims 1 to 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Lee;
and claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Lee.
We reverse the aforementioned rejections. We need to address only the independent
claims, i.e., claims 1, 5 and 9.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the Examiner and
Appellants concerning the above-noted rejections, we refer to the Answer, Brief and Reply
Brief for the full exposition thereof.
OPINION
The review of the grounds of rejection of the appealed claims necessarily entails the
interpretation of the scope of the appealed claims. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054,
44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997). In the present case, the independent claims 1, 5
and 9 all include the element “orifice track”. The specification describe the orifice track as
follows:
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