Appeal No. 1999-0876
Application No. 08/693,494
Reference is made to the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 19,
mailed October 1, 1998) for the examiner's complete reasoning
in support of the rejections, and to appellants' Brief (Paper
No. 18, filed August 5, 1998) for appellants' arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
We have carefully considered the claims, the applied
prior art references, and the respective positions articulated
by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our
review, we will reverse the anticipation rejection of claims 1
and 3 through 20 over Breeden; the anticipation rejection of
claims 1, 11, 12, and 17 over Connolly; and the obviousness
rejection of claims 3 through 9, 13 through 16, and 18 through
20.
The examiner first rejects all of the claims as being
anticipated by Breeden. "It is axiomatic that anticipation of
a claim under § 102 can be found only if the prior art
reference discloses every element of the claim." In re King,
the terminal disclaimer filed on August 5, 1998 has been accepted, and the
examiner omits from the Answer the obviousness-type double patenting rejection
made in the Final Rejection. Accordingly, we assume that the terminal
disclaimer has overcome the obviousness-type double patenting rejection, and,
therefore, that rejection is not before us.
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