Appeal 2007-4073
Application 10/739,417
1
2 ANALYSIS
3 There are four grounds of rejection on appeal. Before addressing the
4 Examiner’s rejections and Leaphart’s responses, we first analyze Leaphart’s
5 effective filing date and the scope of the disputed claim term “unidirectional
6 seal.”
7
8 The Effective Filing Date of the ‘417 Application Claims
9
10 The ‘417 application on appeal was filed on December 18, 2003. The
11 ‘417 specification claims benefit to the filing date of several parent
12 applications, including U.S. Application 10/436,515, filed May 13, 2003,
13 which issued as Leaphart ‘753. The declaration filed for the ‘417
14 application is consistent with the specification and likewise claims 35 U.S.C.
15 § 120 benefit of the ‘515 application. Additionally, the Examiner’s first
16 office action stated that the present ‘417 application appears to be a
17 continuation-in-part of the ‘515 application and Leaphart’s response to first
18 office action identifies the present ‘417 application as a continuation-in-part
19 of the ‘515 application. (First Office Action, p. 2, Amendment and
20 Response dated June 24, 2005, p. 16). Based upon the ‘417 specification
21 and the ‘417 prosecution history, we find that the ‘417 application is a
22 continuation-in-part of the ‘515 application filed May 13, 2003.
23 Claims in the ‘417 application that are described and enabled by the
24 specification of the parent ‘515 specification are entitled to an effective
25 filing date of at least May 13, 2003. Claims in the ‘417 application that are
26 not described or enabled by the parent ‘515 specification are entitled to a
27 filing date of December 18, 2003. See, 35 U.S.C. §120.
13
Page: Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013