Appeal No. 2006-1484
Application No. 09/828,480
PRIOR ART
The prior art references relied upon by the examiner in
support of the § 103 rejection before us are:
Stricker et al. (Stricker) 5,670,235 Sep. 23, 1997
Dinter et al. (Dinter) EP 0418772 A3 Mar. 27, 1991 2
(Published European Patent)
REJECTION
Claims 1, 3 through 25, and 27 through 29 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the combined
disclosures of Dinter and Stricker. 3
OPINION
We have carefully reviewed the claims, specification and
prior art, including all of the arguments advanced by both the
2The examiner relies on the English translation of DE
3931452 provided by the appellants as the Dinter disclosure in
rejecting the claims on appeal. See the Answer, page 3. The
examiner states, and the appellants do not disagree, that Dinter
is equivalent to DE 3931452. Compare the Answer, page 3, with
the Brief and the Reply Brief in their entirety.
3As is apparent from page 2 of the final Office action
dated November 2, 2003, page 2 of the Answer dated September 21,
2004, page 2 of the Supplemental Answer dated June 20, 2005, and
page 5 of the appellants’ Brief dated July 7, 2004, the examiner
has inadvertently omitted claim 25 from the statement of
rejection set forth at page 3 of the Answer. Consistent with the
appellants’ Brief and the examiner’s final Office action, we have
included claim 25 in the statement of rejection set forth in the
Answer.
3
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