Appeal No. 1998-2606
Application 08/446,415
under the judicially created doctrine obviousness-double
patenting, we sustain this rejection as to claims 1 through 4,
16, 17 and 21. Pages 1 through 5 of the principal brief on
appeal indicate that appellants have conceded the
unpatentability of claims 1 through 4 and 21. Appellants
attempt to exclude in the reply brief independent claim 21
from this initial concession in the principal brief on appeal
since the subject matter urged at pages 1 and 3 of the reply
brief concerning the recitation of the "light absorbing
shield" of claim 21 excludes it from this rejection. As noted
by the examiner in the answer, the subject matter of claim 21
includes the features of claims 1, 3 and 4. Since appellants
have never waivered from their view that patentability of
these claims has been conceded in the brief and reply brief,
the rejection is sustained as to claim 21 as well.
With respect to the other claims, claims 5 through 20, we
make the following findings. The claims of U.S. Patent
5,442,338 recite in part "an image strip carrier having a
series of images." To ascertain the meaningfulness of this
recitation, we turn to the specification of that patent for
enlightenment. At the outset, however, we note that while the
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