Appeal No. 96-3189
Application 08/396,079
rejections.
The Japanese counterpart of the original patent
application was published in Japan on April 28, 1992 [brief,
page 5].
Analysis
The appeal here involves only a question of law, i.e.,
whether the rejection based on the equitable doctrine of
laches is sustainable. Since no prior art rejection is before
us, we do not consider any technological aspects of the case.
To begin with, Appellants argue that the PTO position
regarding this ground of rejection is untenable, premised on
these grounds: (1) the invention was already made known to the
public via the Japanese publication, albeit in Japan [brief,
page 6]; (2) prolonging of the time of disclosure was not an
issue because the time has been established by publication of
the Japanese application [brief, pages 6 to 7]; (3) the matter
of right of a U.S. patent applicant to delay patent issuance
in the pursuit of appropriate claims through the use of
continuation applications is established as in Moore, infra
-5-
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