Appeal No. 2005-1270 3
Application No. 09/798,169
Reference is made to the briefs and answer for the respective positions of
appellants and the examiner.
OPINION
At the outset, we note that while appellants group the claims as standing or
falling together, at page 4 of the principal brief, appellants argue the three separate
rejections and try to distinguish the claims in each of these rejections over different prior
art references. Accordingly, we will treat claim 9 as being representative of the claims
subject to the anticipation rejection over Houston and the obviousness rejection over
Nota. We will focus on independent claim 15 as representative of the claims rejected
under 35 U.S.C. §103 over Faulk.
With regard to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. §102 (e), anticipation requires that
the four corners of a single prior art document describe every element of the claimed
invention, either expressly or inherently, such that a person of ordinary skill in the art
could practice the invention without undue experimentation. In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d
1475, 1478-79, 31 USPQ2d 1671, 1673 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
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