Opinion ID: 209563
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Grouping of Claims

Text: Tzipori argues that the Board erred in considering certain of his claims together. Although Tzipori stated in his substitute appeal brief to the Board that [t]he claims do 2008-1119 3 not stand or fall together, he organized his claims into four groups: (a) 27 through 29, (b) 30 and 33, (c) 31, and (d) 32, and 34 through 36. Tzipori did not separately argue for the allowability of his only independent claim, claim 26. The Board nonetheless considered claim 26 as a fifth claim group. Tzipori points to no part of the record in which he made arguments specific to only one claim of a multi-claim group. Tzipori instead appears to have argued his claims as he grouped them. For example, to the Board, Tzipori argued: The prior art does not teach administration of humanized (claim 27), recombinant (claim 28) or chimeric humanized antibodies (claim 29). The examiner has used hindsight to say that it would be obvious to substitute humanized, recombinant or chimeric antibodies for the antibodies described by Krivan or Williams. Even on appeal to this court, Tzipori generally argues his claims in the same groups he delinated for the Board. Tzipori’s statement in his appeal brief that the claims do not stand or fall together, followed by four groupings of claims and arguments directed to those claims as groups, is insufficient to require the Board to give individual consideration to each of Tzipori’s claims. The applicable regulation, which Tzipori does not challenge, requires an applicant to clearly identify and separately argue those claims for which he requests the Board's specific attention. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37. 1 If an applicant does not comply 1 Title 37 C.F.R. § 41.37 provides, in part: For each ground of rejection applying to two or more claims, the claims may be argued separately or as a group. When multiple claims subject to the same ground of rejection are argued as a group by appellant, the Board may select a single claim from the group of claims that are argued together to decide the appeal with respect to the group of claims as to the ground of rejection on the basis of the selected claim alone. Notwithstanding any other provision of this paragraph, the failure of 2008-1119 4 with this regulation, the Board is free to select a single claim from each group of claims subject to a common ground of rejection as representative of all claims in that group and to decide the appeal of that rejection based solely on the selected representative claim. In re McDaniel, 293 F.3d 1379, 1383 (Fed. Cir. 2002). The Board did not err in considering Tzipori’s claims in the very groups he himself argued to the Board.