Appeal No. 2006-1961
Application No. 10/726,357
as being unpatentable over claims 1-16 of U.S. Patent No.
6,720,034 in view of Rigney. In addition, claims 14 and 15 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Nagaraj in view of Klabunde, Kirk-Othmer, Rigney and Skoog et al.
The examiner also states at page 3 of the answer that “[t]he
examiner has withdrawn the provisional obvious double patenting
rejection to claims 1-5 in view of the terminal disclaimer filed
6/9/2005" (first paragraph).
Accordingly, it can be seen that the examiner’s answer
contains inconsistencies with respect to the rejections based on
U.S. Patent No. 6,720,034. Manifestly, if appellants have filed
an effective terminal disclaimer regarding U.S. Patent 6,720,034,
the examiner’s double patenting and Section 103 rejections based
on the patent are inappropriate.
Consequently, this application is remanded to the examiner
to resolve the inconsistencies noted above with respect to the
rejections over U.S. Patent No. 6,720,034, and the effectiveness
of appellants’ terminal disclaimer in removing the patent as a
basis for rejection.
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