Appeal No. 1997-4067 Application 08/285,324 Claims 1-15 stand rejected under the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over claims 1- 13 of Application 08/285,326, now U.S. Patent 5,608,821 ('821 patent), and claims 1-17 of copending Application 08/285,328 ('328 application). Claims 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Williams and Kanno. We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 16) (pages referred to as "FR__") and the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 22) (pages referred to as "EA__") for a statement of the Examiner's position and to the Appeal Brief (Paper No. 20) (pages referred to as "Br__") for a statement of Appellants' arguments thereagainst. OPINION Double patenting The test for obviousness-type double patenting is whether the claimed subject matter of the application is obvious over what is covered by the patent claims (or the application claims in the case of a provisional obviousness- type double patenting rejection). "[T]he disclosure of a patent cited in support of a double patenting rejection - 4 -Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007