Appeal No. 2006-1216 Παγε 3
Application No. 10/623,674
in the answer) reveals fifteen separate rejections under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) that were maintained by the examiner in that
final office action. All of those rejections employ reference
evidence other than that listed by the examiner in the answer,
Item No. 8. Some of those rejections employ neither of the two
references that the examiner lists in numbered item 8 of the
answer as the evidence being relied upon.
This lack of clarity in the rejections and evidence relied
upon by the examiner in the answer is further attenuated by the
examiner’s failure to cite Mugerwa in rejecting claims 4, 5, 10,
11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 20 in the final rejection because
those claims depend on claim 1. In this regard, the examiner
relies on Grasso et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication
No. US2001/0004500, Bloomfield (U.S. Patent No. 3,982,962) and
Mugerwa in a rejection of independent claim 1 in the final
rejection, whereas Mugerwa is not cited in the rejections of the
above-noted dependent claims.
Here, the examiner has not explained in the final rejection
why Mugerwa is necessary for the rejection of independent
claim 1, but not those above-noted dependent claims, each of
which includes all of the limitations of claim 1. This is
particularly significant in that the examiner has not explained
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