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.
3
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