Appeal No. 2005-2268 Page 4
Application No. 09/976,683
C. Representative Claims
1. "[T]o assure separate review by the Board of individual claims within each
group of claims subject to a common ground of rejection, an appellant's brief to the
Board must contain a clear statement for each rejection: (a) asserting that the
patentability of claims within the group of claims subject to this rejection do not stand or
fall together, and (b) identifying which individual claim or claims within the group are
separately patentable and the reasons why the examiner's rejection should not be
sustained." In re McDaniel, 293 F.3d 1379, 1383, 63 USPQ2d 1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir.
2002) (citing 37 C.F.R. §1.192(c)(7)). "If the brief fails to meet either requirement, the
Board is free to select a single claim from each group of claims subject to a common
ground of rejection as representative of all claims in that group and to decide the appeal
of that rejection based solely on the selected representative claim." Id., 63 USPQ2d at
1465.
2. The appellant stipulates, "The claims grouped as in the rejections stand or fall
together." (Appeal Br. at 3.) Accordingly, we select claims 1, 8, and 3 from the groups
as representative of the claims therein.
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