Appeal No. 1998-0941 Page 8
Application No. 08/226,660
freeze into rules of general application what, at best, are
statements applicable to particular fact situations.
The appellants have stated (reply brief, p. 3) that the
claims under appeal and patent claim 15 "are directed to
patentably distinct inventions." The examiner has not contested
that statement. Moreover, from the evidence before us in this
appeal, it is appears to us that the patent claims and the
application claims are directed to two separate inventions, and
that the issuance of the application claims will not extend the
exclusivity of the rights granted beyond the term of the patent.
For the reasons set forth above, we will not sustain the
examiner's rejection of claims 20-34 and 43-72 based on the
judicially created doctrine of double patenting.
REMAND
We remand this application to the examiner to determine
whether or not the claims under appeal comply with the
requirements of the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112. In that
regard, the claims under appeal all recite that the signal
processing means determines the denomination of "each scanned
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