Appeal No. 2000-0107
Application 08/905,072
5,573,277. However, appellant also states that all of the
subject matter of the '277 patent qualifies as prior art
against appellant under the public use and on sale provisions
of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b), even if the claims involved in the
present appeal were accorded the benefit of the filing date of
parent application 08/725,856.
Accordingly, in view of appellant's response, and since
it is well settled that public use or sale under § 102(b) is
prior art under § 103 and may support an obviousness
rejection, In re Corcoran, 640 F.2d 1331, 1333, 208 USPQ 867,
869 (CCPA 1981), we will refer to the '277 patent as a
convenient description of the subject matter barred to
appellant under § 102(b), and treat the rejection herein as if
it were for obviousness over the '277 patent in view of Walz.
The claims on appeal, 1 to 18, are drawn to a continuous
assembly of a backer and a plurality of labels (claims 1 to
8), and a method for preparing mailpieces (claims 9 to 18).
They are reproduced in the appendix of appellant's brief.
The references applied in the final rejection are:
Walz 5,190,210 Mar. 2,
1993
2
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