Appeal 2006-2465
Application 10/266,052
35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph. In other words, the Examiner must
ascertain the correctness of the Appellants’ response to our Order pursuant
to 37 CFR § 41.50(d) (2004).
Once the claim scope is properly defined, the Examiner must
reevaluate the content of the applied prior art and determine whether it still
anticipates the claimed subject matter within the meaning of 35 U.S.C.
§§ 102 and 103. The Examiner must determine whether the prior art
structures are identical or “equivalent” to the corresponding structures
described in the specification. The Examiner is authorized to submit a
Supplemental Examiner’s Answer containing the above analyses if such
analyses do not constitute a new ground of rejection.
If the Examiner determines that such analyses change the thrust of the
Examiner’s § 102 and § 103 rejections or determine that the claims are
indefinite and/or obvious under different statutory grounds, the Examiner
must reopen the prosecution of this application to include such new grounds
of rejection so that Appellants are given an opportunity to respond pursuant
to the procedural due process requirement
CONCLUSION
In summary, the Appellants are given a non-extendable time
period of two (2) months from the mailing date of this order to file a
Supplemental Paper. Failure to respond within the given time period will
result in the dismissal of the appeal.
The instant application is remanded to the Examiner to consider the
aforementioned issues and act accordingly.
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