Appeal No. 2006-1562
Application No. 10/720,948
Claims 1-4, 6, 9-12, 14-16, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as being unpatentable over Micchia.2
Claims 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Micchia.
Claims 5, 13 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Micchia in view of Morgan.
Rather than reiterate the respective positions advocated by
the Appellant and by the Examiner concerning these rejections,
we refer to the brief and reply brief and to the answer
respectively for a complete exposition thereof.
OPINION
For the reasons provided below, none of rejections can be
sustained.
Under the circumstances presented by this appeal, the
propriety of the all the rejections will be determined by our
assessment of the § 102 rejections of the independent claims 1,
10 and 18 over Micchia and independent claim 1 over Maged. Thus,
we focus on these rejections. With respect to the Micchia and
Maged patents, Appellant primarily argues that neither patent
2 The 35 U.S.C. § 102 rejection of claim 14 is improper. Claim 14
is dependent upon claim 13. Claim 13 is rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a). As such, the § 102 rejection over claim 14
is not appropriate because it conflicts with the obviousness-
based rejection of the parent claim.
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