Appeal No. 2005-1380
Application No. 09/944,314
The examiner relies on the following references as evidence
of unpatentability:
Walter 3,567,871 Mar. 02, 1971
Hoerkens 4,803,853 Feb. 14, 1989
Bowser et al. (Bowser) 5,581,627 Dec. 03, 1996
Yoest et al. (Yoest) 6,097,825 Aug. 01, 2000
Widmer et al. (Widmer) 6,595,317 B1 Jul. 22, 2003
(filed Sep. 25, 2000)
The following rejections are before this merits panel for
review in this appeal:
(1) claims 1, 2, 8 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as anticipated by the admitted prior art at page 1, ll.
4-10, of the specification (Answer, page 3, referring to the
prior Office action dated May 18, 2004);
(2) claims 1-3 and 8-10 stand rejected under section 102(b)
as anticipated by Walter (id.);
(3) claims 1-3 and 8-10 stand rejected under section 102(b)
as anticipated by Bowser (id.);
(4) claims 1-3, 6, 8-10, 13 and 16 stand rejected under
section 102(b) as anticipated by Hoerkens (id. at page 4);
(5) claims 1, 2, 8 and 9 stand rejected under section 102(b)
as anticipated by Yoest (id.);
(6) claims 1-3, 5, 7-10, 12 and 14-17 stand rejected under
section 102(b) as anticipated by Widmer (id.);1 and
1Since appellants’ filing date for this application is after
the filing date of Widmer but before the issue date of Widmer, we
presume the examiner erroneously stated this rejection in the
Answer as based on section 102(b) while previously stating the
statutory basis as section 102(a) in the prior Office action
dated May 18, 2004 (see page 3). Since appellants do not dispute
the statutory basis for this rejection (see the Brief and Reply
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007