Appeal No. 2005-1765
Application No. 10/208,077
“said first contact point is pressed against said third contact point and said
second contact point is pressed against said fourth contact point” to include that
the contacts press against one another through an intermediary.1
Having determined the scope of the claim, we next consider the teachings
of Nelson. Initially we note that, contrary to the appellants’ arguments that
address Nelson’s contacts 62 and 64, the examiner finds that Nelson’s contacts
65 and 64 meet the claims first through fourth contacts. Nonetheless, whether
considering the contacts 62 and 64 or 65 and 64, we find that Nelson teaches the
set of opposing contacts on opposing elongate bodies 63, which push against
each other. As can be seen from Nelson’s figure 6, contacts 62 push against
each other through circuit board 13, and contacts 65 push against each other
through patch plug insulating section 76. As can be seen from Nelson’s figure
6A, contact portions 64 press against each other through circuit board 13. Thus,
regardless of which pairs of contacts are considered to meet the claimed
invention, we find that Nelson teaches the claimed contacts pressing against
each other. Accordingly, we sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through
4.
Only those arguments actually made by appellants have been considered
in this decision. Arguments which appellants could have made but chose not to
make in the brief or by filing a reply brief have not been considered and are
1 Though not discussed by either the examiner or appellants, we additionally note that we do not
consider claim 1 to require that the first and third contacts press against each other when the
second and fourth contacts press against each other.
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