Appeal No. 2002-1954 Application No. 09/458,926 Claims 3 through 5, 7 through 16, 18 through 26, 28 through 34 and 36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Bohannan. Claims 6, 17, 27 and 35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Bohannan in view of Baum. Attention is directed to the appellants’ brief (Paper No. 10) and to the final rejection and examiner’s answer (Paper Nos. 8 and 11) for the respective positions of the appellants and the examiner regarding the merits of these rejections.1 DISCUSSION I. The 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, expressly or under principles of inherency, each and every element of a claimed invention. RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Bohannan discloses a baseball bat 2 having a neck portion 9, a body portion 11, a knob 40 and a longitudinal axis 10. Structurally, the bat consists of a filling or core of closed 1 As recognized by the appellants (see pages 3 and 8 in the brief), the examiner’s statements of the third rejection (see page 3 in both the final rejection and answer) should have referred to claim 35 instead of claim 25. 3Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007