Appeal No. 2006-1203
Application No. 10/370,976
Claims 7-9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Tran and Snowdon.
Rather than reiterate the opposing arguments, reference is made to the brief and
answer for the respective positions of Appellants and the Examiner. 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 have not been considered (37 CFR §
41.37(c)(1)(vii)).
OPINION
35 U.S.C. § 102 Rejection of claims 1, 3, 6 and 10 over Tran
In rejecting the claims, the Examiner refers to Figure 4 of Tran and reads the
claimed first element on top strip 404 and the second element on bottom strip 408,
which are connected to a signal feed (the inner conductor of coaxial feed) and a ground
line (the outer conductor of coaxial feed), respectively (answer, page 3). To show the
first and second frequency bands for the first and second elements, the Examiner
further relies on the different frequencies designated by ƒ0+Δƒ and ƒ0-Δƒ for the two
strips (paragraph bridging columns 11-12). Appellants argue that Tran does not
disclose a dual-band antenna and in fact, acknowledges that the disclosed dual strip
antenna is not intended for use as a dual-band antenna (brief, page 6). Appellants
further point out that the first and second strips in Tran have resonant frequencies very
close to each other and form a single band antenna instead of the claimed dual-band
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