Appeal No. 1998-2204
Application No. 08/470,432
single axis of the guide means, it would have been obvious to provide the low friction rings so
as to be "coaxial" as interpreted above.
As to claim 27, to integrally form the guide rings and outer member and guide means as
a unitary body would have been obvious in view of the suggestion to do so by Cranston (page
2, lines 15-23).
Claim 17 is rejected under the judicially created doctrine of double patenting over claim
4 of the appellants' U.S. Patent No. 5,479,740 in view of Horton and Cranston, as applied
above to claim 16, further in view of Viveiros.
Claim 4 of the appellants' patent does not recite a guide means which gradually
increases in size from the second end to the first end, as required in claim 17. However, to
form the guide means as a funnel which increases in size from the second end to the first end to
decrease any loops that may be in the line coming from the reel in an equal and instantaneous
manner so that the line flows into the tubular member evenly, as taught by Viveiros (column 2,
lines 43-46), would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of fishing rods.
The double patenting rejections are based on a judicially created doctrine of double
patenting grounded in public policy so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise
extension of the "right to exclude" granted by a patent by prohibiting the issuance of the claims
in a second patent not patentably distinct from the claims of the first patent. See In re Longi,
759 F.2d 887, 892, 225 USPQ 645, 648 (Fed. Cir. 1985).
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