Appeal No. 1999-2281
Application No. 08/621,521
Appellants argue (Brief, page 5) that Gill does not
qualify as prior art, since the claims rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 102 are fully supported by prior U.S. Patent No.
5,041,932 to Hamilton, back to which the present application
claims priority. Appel-lants set forth no other arguments
against the anticipation rejection. The examiner asserts
(Answer, page 4) that Hamilton '932 fails to disclose the
orientation of the longitudinal axis of the flexure beam as
recited in claim 1. Therefore, the examiner concludes that
appellants are not entitled to the benefit of the filing date
of the Hamilton patent. Further, the
examiner (Answer, page 4) raises an issue as to whether there
is
an unbroken chain back to Hamilton '932, though the examiner
appears to have failed to do the requisite fact finding to
support such a conclusion.
There are four conditions for receiving the benefit of an
earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. § 120. First, the second
application must be an application for a patent for an
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