Appeal 2006-1736
Application 10/471,180
A review of the Briefs and Answer reveals that an initial threshold
issue raised in this appeal relates to the availability of Gabrys (U.S. Patent
No. 6,798,092) as prior art to Appellants’ claimed subject matter. According
to United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) records, the Gabrys’
patent issued from U.S. Application No. 09/976,506, filed on October 12,
2001. Gabrys included a reference to earlier filed provisional application
No. 60/241,575, filed on October 12, 2000.
Appellants submitted national stage application papers for this
application on November 09, 2003 based on an earlier filed International
Application No. PCT/JP02/0216 on March 07, 2002 and claimed a foreign
priority benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a) to an earlier filed application in
Japan (JP 2001-70899 filed on March 31, 2001).
Faced with several rejections relying on Gabrys as applied prior art,
among other applied evidence, Appellants submitted a verified English
language translation of JP 2001-70899 on April 14, 2005 asserting that the
filing date (October 12, 2001) of the non-provisional application from which
Gabrys issued is a date subsequent to the filing date (March 31, 2001 of the
foreign priority date claimed by Applicants pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 119(a),
based on the Japanese filing. However, Appellants’ assertion was not
substantiated with a showing that the priority application is for the same
invention; that is, Appellants have not shown where each and every rejected
claim of this application is fully supported in the manner required by
35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph in the earlier filed foreign priority
application for which priority benefit is claimed.
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007