Appeal No. 2003-1509
Application 09/853,575
2001) ("any rejection not repeated and not discussed in the
answer may be taken by the Board as having been withdrawn").
Nevertheless, we consider the rejection for completeness.
Claims 1-5, 19, 20, and 43 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Crossland and Appeldorn '643.
We refer to the rejection (Paper No. 9) (pages referred to
as "FR__") and the examiner's answer (Paper No. 15) (pages
referred to as "EA__") for a statement of the examiner's
rejection, and to the second appeal brief (Paper No. 14) (pages
referred to as "Br__") for a statement of appellants' arguments
thereagainst.2
OPINION
Double patenting
The examiner held claims 1-5, 19, 20, and 43 to be obvious
over claims 1-40, in particular, claims 1, 14, 20, 21, 34, 36,
and 37 of appellants' U.S. Patent 6,307,987 ('987 patent) because
those claims contain all of the limitations of the present claims
(FR3). Appellants state that this issue will be best addressed
after all other patentability issues have been resolved so that
the claims are in their final form for comparison against the
2 Although appellants' first appeal brief (Paper No. 12),
ostensibly addressed the rejection of Crossland and
Appeldorn '643, the examiner found the arguments to be directed
to Appeldorn et al. (Appeldorn '876), U.S. Patent 5,432,876,
issued July 11, 1995, and required a new brief (Paper No. 13).
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