Appeal No. 00-0910
Application No. 08/821,176
subject matter of the presently appealed claims in the parent
application.2
Looking at the examiner’s rationale in rejecting the
appealed claims under the judicially created doctrine of
double patenting, the examiner states (answer, pages 3-4):
The subject matter claimed in the instant
application is fully disclosed in the patent and is
covered by the patent since the patent and the
application are claiming common subject matter.
That is, both the claims of the patent and the
application claim a modular steering wheel and
airbag combination comprising a steering wheel
assembly and an airbag assembly wherein the steering
wheel assembly includes a hub plate and “structure
to secure the hub plate to a steering column.”
Furthermore, there is no apparent reason why the
applicant was prevented from presenting claims
corresponding to those of the instant application
2In comparing the disclosures of the parent application
and the present continuation-in-part application, we
appreciate that Figures 16 and 17 and the portions of the
specification describing said figures were added to the
disclosure of the present application. Accordingly, to the
extent any of the presently appealed claims are directed to
features disclosed exclusively in Figures 16 and 17, such
claims obviously could not have been presented in the parent
application.
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