Appeal No. 2003-2103 Page 4
Application No. 09/826,256
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
the appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the final
rejection and answer (Paper Nos. 4 and 9) for the examiner's complete reasoning in
support of the rejections and to the brief (Paper No. 8) for the appellants’ arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied Bruijns patent, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
Appellant’s brief does not present any arguments against the rejection of claims
1, 2 and 4-8 under the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting.1
The rejection is thus summarily sustained.
We turn our attention next to the examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2 and 4-8 as
being unpatentable over Bruijns. Appellants’ brief states on page 6 that claims 1, 2 and
4-8 are grouped together for purposes of this appeal. Thus, in accordance with 37 CFR
§ 1.192(c)(7), we have selected claim 1 as the representative claim in deciding this
1 While we acknowledge that appellants indicated on page 14 of Paper No. 3 an intent to file a
termina l disclaim er upon the indica tion of allow able su bject m atter if the ob viousn ess-typ e doub le
patenting rejection were maintained, we note that no terminal disclaimer has been filed.
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