Appeal No. 2005-0354
Application No. 09/399,412
The prior art of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the appealed
claims is as follows:
Fourie 4,671,576 Jun. 9, 1987
Matsuoka 5,544,057 Aug. 6, 1996
Cook et al. (Cook) 5,605,387 Feb. 25, 1997
Kull 5,681,015 Oct. 28, 1997
Roselli et al. (Roselli) 5,718,487 Feb. 17, 1998
Claims 1-3, 5-8, 11, 16, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Cook in view of Fourie. Claims 9, 10, and 12-15 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Cook and Fourie in view of Kull.1
Claim 18 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Cook and
Fourie in view of Matsuoka. Claims 19 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Cook and Fourie in view of Roselli.
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. 26, mailed Feb. 10, 2004) for the examiner's reasoning in support of
the rejections, and to appellant's brief (Paper No. 25, filed Nov. 20, 2003) for appellant's
arguments thereagainst.
1 We note that the examiner has not included a restatement of this rejection in the answer, but
has not expressly indicated that this rejection is overcome or withdrawn in either the final rejection or the
examiner’s answer. Therefore, we will treat the claims as rejected in the first office action.
3
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