Appeal 2007-0417
Application 10/796,814
is not entitled to the benefit of any filing dates of the intervening
applications in chain, much less the filing date of Pitts.
In addition to the written description requirement under § 112, the
statute also requires the present application to provide “a specific reference”
to an earlier application. In other words, the present application needs to
refer to all the applications in the chain, including Pitts, if it is to obtain the
filing date of Pitts. Sticker Indus. Supply Corp. v. Blaw-Knox Co., 405 F.2d
90, 92-93, 160 USPQ 177, 178-79 (7th Cir. 1968). However, the
Appellants’ present application states in the “CROSS-REFERENCE TO
RELATED APPLICATIONS” section (Specification 1) that:
This application is a continuation application of
copending U.S. Serial No. 10/047,493, filed January 14,
2002, which was a CIP application of U.S. Ser. No.
09/416,255, filed October 12, 1999, abandoned.
The present application does not refer to the other applications in the priority
chain, including Pitts. Thus, even if the subject matter claimed in the
present application is described by the chain of applications, we determine
that the present application is, at best, entitled to the filing date of
Application 09/416,255 (October 12, 1999). See Sticker Indus. Supply Corp.
v. Blaw-Knox Co., supra. As Pitts’ publication or issuance date is still more
than one year before the filing date of Application 09/416,255, the
Appellants cannot remove Pitts as a prior art reference against the claims on
appeal.
The Appellants contend that “[n]o case law or statutory authority
stand[s] for the proposition that an applicant’s parent application itself can
be used to anticipate a child application…." (Br. 5) This contention is
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013