Appeal No. 2006-2210
Application 09/944,230
actual scope of the claims. The arguments in effect are more specific than
the scope of the claimed features argued.
Stated otherwise, appellants’ negative limitation of a surface being
“substantially free of hills and valleys” is the logical converse of the surface
being substantially planar. The references do not teach a negative, that is,
what is not taught/shown but only what is positively taught or shown, that
the surfaces are substantially planar. This claimed negative limitation must
be interpreted to be consistent with appellants’ original claims and disclosed
invention, that the surface is substantially planar, which is the same manner
in which the disclosed invention is taught and depicted in the prior art relied
upon by the examiner.
To the extent the features of dependent claims 13, 20, 22 and 24 are
argued by appellants with respect to any one or more of the rejections under
35 U.S.C. § 102, the examiner’s statement of the rejection has addressed the
claimed features which have not been rebutted by appellants in the brief and
reply brief. Appellants’ positions with respect to these dependent claims
extend the arguments made with respect to their parent independent claims 1
and 15 and make no reference to the correlated teachings and showings
relied upon by the examiner.
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