Appeal No. 2000-1779 Application No. 08/473,204 The rejections under 35 U. S.C. § 103: Initially, we note that the instant application shares the same parent with Application No. 08/483,327, now United States Patent No. 6,040,175 (‘175). It appears that the examiner’s rejection of the claims in the present application under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is inconsistent with the determination that claim 1 of ‘175 is patentable. Claim 1 of the ‘175 patent reads as follows: 1. A membrane preparation derived from a host cell, said host cell having incorporated expressibly therein a heterologous polynucleotide that encodes human GluR2B receptor selected from the group consisting of: (a) the sequence of amino acids 1-863 of SEQ ID NO:2, (b) a human GluR2B receptor variant having a sequence of amino acids 1-863 of SEQ ID NO:2 with the exception that there are from 1-32 conservative amino acid substitutions, (c) a membrane-bound fragment of the human GluR2B receptor of (a) or (b) comprising the extracellular N-terminal region that precedes TM-1, and (d) a membrane-bound fragment of the human GluR2B receptor of (a) comprising the extracellular C-terminal region that follows TM-4. In addition, Heinemann, Puckett and Sun relied upon by the examiner in this appeal are cited on the face of the patent as considered prior art. While the examiner may issue a rejection if appropriate under these circumstances, a rejection using the rationale set forth above would appear to require the signature of the Group Director. Compare MPEP ' 2307.02 (7th ed., July 1998). We note the Group Director did not sign the examiner’s action. Generally, appeals on these facts are remanded to provide the examiner an opportunity to consider the issued patent and determine its effect, if any, on the issues raised under 35 U.S.C. § 103. However, after considering the facts in this 62Page: Previous 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007