Appeal No. 1999-0281 Page 6
Application No. 08/629,727
(e) the invention was described in a patent granted on an
application for patent by another filed in the United
States before the invention thereof by the applicant for
patent .
The dispute herein involves the extent to which the
Kolbus patent is prior art against the claims under appeal.
The appellants do not dispute that the Kolbus patent was
applied for "by another" (brief, p. 5). But as explained in
In re DeBaun, 687 F.2d 459, 214 USPQ 933 (CCPA 1982), simply
because a patent is issued to joint inventors does not mean
that everything disclosed in that patent is necessarily joint
work which would constitute prior art against a subsequent
patent application by one of the two joint inventors. In
DeBaun, a patent covering an air sampling system was issued to
two inventors, Kenneth W. DeBaun and Robert W. Noll. DeBaun
subsequently filed a patent application on his own which
contained claims covering a specific cross section of an air
duct disclosed but not claimed in the patent previously issued
to DeBaun and Noll. DeBaun filed an affidavit to the effect
that he was the inventor of the cross section and that the
cross section had been included in the previous joint patent
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