Appeal No. 95-2603
Application 07/915,871
examiner, appellants (and in particular their counsel) and the
board itself adopt practices which maximize the opportunity
for prompt and full resolution of patentability issues in ex
parte appeals.
In this appeal, the examiner relied upon several
abstracts without citing (or apparently obtaining copies of)
the underlying scientific article itself. Citation of an
abstract without citation and reliance on the underlying
scientific article itself is unacceptable. Abstracts
sometimes are not written by the author of the underlying
article and often are erroneous. Hence, the preferred
practice would be for the examiner to cite and rely on the
underlying article. Furthermore, when the examiner cites and
relies only on an abstract, it would appear prudent for the
applicant to obtain a copy of the underlying article and
submit a copy to the examiner when responding to a rejection
which has been entered by the examiner. In the past, when
neither the examiner nor the appellant cites or relies on the
underlying article, often the board itself has expended the
resources necessary to obtain a copy of the underlying
scientific article. In this case, it is not possible to
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