Appeal 2007-1262
Application 10/697,532
The claims of the following patents are relied upon by the Examiner
in the obviousness-type double patenting rejections on appeal:1
Chen (Chen ‘009) US 6,617,009 B1 Sep. 9, 2003
Chen (Chen ‘934) US 6,986,934 B2 Jan. 17, 2006
Chen (Chen ‘460) US 7,169,460 B1 Jan. 30, 2007
Claims 1-39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Hansson in view of Casto.
Claims 1-39 also are rejected under the judicially created doctrine of
obviousness-type double patenting over (1) the claims of Chen ‘009;
(2) the claims of Chen ‘460; and (3) the claims of Chen ‘934.
OPINION
We will sustain each of these rejections for the reasons expressed in
the Answer and below.
The § 103 Rejection
As background to their invention, the Appellants describe the
conventional approach to forming a surface covering panel such as laminate
flooring which involves a method known in the art as embossed-in-register
wherein first a printed pattern is formed on a substrate and then a textured
design is embossed on and in registry with the printed pattern (Br. 7-8;
Specification 1-3). In contrast, the Appellants characterize their invention as
1 The Answer includes double patenting rejections based on the claims of
Application No. 09/630,121 and Application No. 10/909,684. These
respective applications have now matured into U.S. Patent No. 7,169,460 B1
and U.S. Patent No. 6,986,934 B2. In this decision, we refer to these patent
numbers rather than the application numbers.
3
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