OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art, and to the respective
positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our
review, we make the determinations that follow.
The obviousness-type double patenting rejection
The appellants have not contested the rejection of claims 11, 14 and 15 under
the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting and instead have
indicated on page 34 of their brief that they are willing to file a terminal disclaimer once
the patentability of all of the claims is finally resolved if one is still necessary. The
rejection is therefore summarily sustained.
The rejections based on Nakamoto
Nakamoto discloses an electric parking brake system for a vehicle, the parking
brake system being provided with a control system for preventing the parking brake
from being applied in situations, as described in columns 1-3 of Nakamoto, in which
wheel-lock would be dangerous. As schematically shown in Figure 1, the vehicle
includes a pair of disc brakes 1, a parking brake system A having a parking brake cable
2 connected to the disc brakes and adapted to be pulled or slackened to apply or
release the brakes, and a main brake system 4 having flexible hoses 3 connected to the
disc brakes and adapted to feed pressurized fluid to the brakes upon depression of a
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