Appeal No. 1997-2958 26
Application No. 08/401,719
OTHER ISSUES
The examiner is directed to U.S. Patent 5,540,791 to Matsuo et al. also assigned to Sky
Aluminum for review for other issues of patentability. This application issued to the same assignee but a
different inventive entity. This patent appears to describe the alloy composition. See, for instance,
Alloy Nos. 1-7 in Table 1. It also describes batch annealing alloy no. 6 at 100°C for 2 hours after cold
rolling at a draft of 67%. See Table 2, Prod. No. 13. At least some of the claims seem to be
anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e). The subject matter of other claims, such as claim 4 and those
dependent thereon, appear to be obvious over Matsuo based on final annealing at the 250°C endpoint
in the annealing temperature range. Upon further prosecution, the examiner should consider making
rejections over §§ 102(e) and 103 at least until such time as a certified translation of the priority
document in this application is filed and found to support the claims. The examiner should also consider
obvious double patenting issues as well. See the claims of Matsuo et al.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is
affirmed-in-part. We affirm the rejection of claims 1, 4, 5, and 15-22 and reverse the rejection of
claims 2, 3, and 6-14. In addition, we bring U.S. Patent 5,540,791 to the attention of the
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