Appeal 2006-2550
Application 10/750,710
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Clausing US 1,644,979 Oct. 11, 1927
Hodges US 1,645,001 Oct. 11, 1927
Seager US 2,455,705 Dec. 07, 1948
Dawson US 2,693,358 Nov. 02, 1954
Tan US 6,710,135 Mar. 23, 20041
Appellants seek review of the Examiner’s rejections under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) of claims 1-4, 8-10, 12, and 13 as unpatentable over Hodges in
view of Clausing, claim 5 as unpatentable over Hodges in view of Clausing
and Dawson, claim 6 as unpatentable over Hodges in view of Clausing and
Seager, claim 14 as unpatentable over Hodges in view of Clausing and Tan,
claims 15-19, 22-27, 29-33, 36-40, 42, and 43 as unpatentable over Hodges
in view of Dawson, claims 20 and 34 as unpatentable over Hodges in view
of Dawson and Seager, claims 21 and 35 as unpatentable over Hodges in
view of Dawson and Clausing, and claims 28 and 41 as unpatentable over
Hodges in view of Dawson and Tan.
1 Appellants have not raised the issue of whether the Tan patent is available
as prior art against Appellants’ claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102. In any event,
even assuming the Tan patent is not available as prior art under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e), both the U.S. publication (US 2003/0013821 A1, published
January 16, 2003) and the international publication (WO 02/12395,
published February 14, 2002) of the application from which the Tan patent
issued occurred prior to the January 2, 2004 filing date of the instant
application and are thus available as prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a).
Accordingly, any error in applying the Tan patent rather than either of the
two prior publications of the application from which the Tan patent issued is
harmless.
3
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