Appeal No. 2006-3157
Application No. 10/417,608
would remain unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, and the examiner
should consider withdrawing the objection of claims 23-25.
4. Claim 26
Claim 26 has been objected to as being dependent upon a rejected claim. The
examiner has indicated that the claim would be allowable if rewritten in independent
form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. See
final Office action mailed March 21, 2005, p. 5.
Claim 26 depends from claim 23 which depends from claim 21. Claim 23 has
been rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, and that rejection has been
affirmed on appeal. Depending on whether claim 21 is amended as suggested in the
previous section of this decision, the examiner should consider whether claim 26 should
be rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, and whether the objection of claim
26 should be withdrawn. See 37 CFR § 1.75(c) (2005) (“Claims in dependent form shall
be construed to include all the limitations of the claim incorporated by reference into the
dependent claim.”).
Conclusion
The rejection of claims 1-25 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, is
affirmed. The rejection of claims 1-3, 5-13, and 16-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is
affirmed. The rejection of claims 4, 14, 15, and 27-29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is
affirmed.
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