Appeal No. 2004-2226
Application NO. 10/066,421
Claims 1, 2 and 4 through 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, first paragraph, as containing subject matter which was
not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably
convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the appellants, at
the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed
invention.
Claims 1, 2 and 4 through 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 6,232,561 to
Schmidt et al. (Schmidt).
Attention is directed to the main, supplemental and reply
briefs and to the answer for the respective positions of the
appellants and the examiner regarding the merits of these
rejections.1
DISCUSSION
I. Petitionable matter
In the supplemental brief, the appellants appear to raise as
an issue in the appeal the propriety of the objection to the
1 The reasons for the 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph,
rejection appear in the answer under two separate statements of
rejection. For purposes of this appeal, we shall treat these
separate statements as one rejection since the statutory basis
for each is the same. Also, the examiner’s comment on page 5 in
the answer that “[c]laim 5 is objected to as being dependent upon
a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in
independent form” is inconsistent with the standing rejections of
this claim and is therefore presumed to be erroneous.
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007