Appeal No. 2005-0129
Application No. 09/406,353
Claims 17-19, 30 and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Ravi alone. The examiner further relies upon Brown and Hang as
further evidence of obviousness for the remainder of the dependent claims. Rather than
reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and appellant regarding
the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's answer (Paper No. 19,
mailed Mar. 11, 2004) for the examiner's reasoning in support of the rejections, and to
appellant’s brief (Paper No. 18, filed Dec. 29, 2004) and reply brief (Paper No. 20, filed
May 13, 2004) for appellant’s arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
At the outset, we note that appellants have elected not to group the claims
together as the Examiner had in the rejection. The claims correspond to the
independent claims 17 and 30. Therefore, we will select the representative independent
claims 17 and 30 and address these claims to the extent that appellant has set forth
separate arguments. Only those arguments actually made by appellant have been
considered in this decision. Arguments which appellant could have made but chose not
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