Appeal No. 94-4461
Application 07/996,797
Claim 18 requires a solid food product that contains a protein source, a
carbohydrate source, and a fat source. Claim 19 which depends from claim 18 requires
that all or a portion of the fat source be provided in a separate form. As seen from claim
24, that separate form could be an emulsion, microcapsule, or capsule.
Claims 19 and 24 appear to be improper dependent claims since they do not serve
to further limit independent claim 18. Rather, they require that an element of claim 18 be
eliminated. This is improper.
Upon return of the application, appellant and the examiner should review all the
claims pending and make sure they are in proper form.
2. Effective filing date of claims on appeal
This application is stated to be a continuation-in-part of Application 07/771,402
filed October 2, 1991. That application is stated to be a continuation-in-part of Application
07/539,385, filed June 18, 1990, issued as Patent No. 5,059,622 on October 22, 1991
(`622 Patent).
It does not appear that the examiner has determined whether any of the claims on
appeal are entitled to the effective filing date of the immediate parent application
07/771,402. If any claim pending in this application is not entitled to the benefit of the
earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. § 120, the `622 patent would be available as prior art
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