Appeal No. 1999-2131 Page 4
Application No. 08/971,504
of U.S. Patent No. 5,725,313 since, in the examiner's view,
the claims of this application, if allowed, would improperly
extend the "right to exclude" already granted in the patent.
Claims 1 through 74 stand rejected under the judicially-
created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over
claims 1 through 27 of U.S. Patent No. 5,725,313.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints
regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the
final rejection (Paper No. 5, mailed May 22, 1998) and the
answer (Paper No. 12, mailed December 29, 1998) for the
examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejections,
and to the brief (Paper No. 11, filed October 26, 1998) and
reply brief (Paper No. 13, filed March 2, 1999) for the
appellants' arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given
careful consideration to the appellants' specification and
claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
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