Appeal No. 1997-0551
Application 08/157,429
containing at least one element selected from the group con-
sisting of Ti, Zr, Hf, V, Nb, Ta, B, Ga, In and Tl.
The references of record relied upon by the examiner
in rejecting the appealed claims are:
Yale 3,381,042 Apr. 30,
1968
Seigneurin 3,795,710 Mar. 05,
1974
Aoyama et al. (Aoyama) 0 421 322 Apr. 10,
19911
(Published European Patent Application)
1Appellants have not challenged the availability of
Aoyama as prior art to the herein claimed subject matter in
their briefs. However, appellants claim a November 27, 1990
priority date under 35 U.S.C. § 119 based on a prior filing in
Japan via parent application No. 07/915,819 for which 35
U.S.C. § 120 benefits are claimed. We will treat Aoyama as if
the subject matter disclosed in that publication and relied
upon by the examiner were available prior art in deciding this
appeal (see appellants’ specification, pages 1 and 2). Any
error that may be present in such treatment of Aoyama is
harmless in light of our disposition of the examiner’s rejec-
tion. The discussion in the briefs and answer regarding the
merits of appellants’ priority claim based on another filing
in Japan on June 03, 1991 are not germane to the issues raised
by this appeal since that priority claim does not affect the
prior art status of any of the references which the examiner
continues to rely upon in the rejection that remains before us
(answer, pages 2 and 4-7).
3
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