Court Opinion

ID: 9453770
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:23:32.106935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:47.867153
License: Public Domain

RICH, Judge, concurring, with whom SMITH, Judge, joins.
This case had been decided by the Board of Appeals before our opinion in In re Blum, 374 F.2d 904, 54 CCPA 1231 (1967) was handed down. We there discussed the confusion created as to what is claimed by the use of the “dominant feature” statement of the type which appears in this application as well as in the appellants’ patent. We also discussed the obscure significance of broken lines and the deficiencies of MPEP 1503.02.
The instant case further illustrates the need for tightening up the require*332ments with respect to what is said and what is shown in design patent applications and for greater clarity in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure.
For myself, I rest affirmance solely on the failure to comply with 35 U.S.C. § 112. I am unable to say whether the same design is being claimed in the application and in the patent, or an obvious variant, because, due to the dotted lines and the “dominant feature” clause in the patent, I am not sure what is claimed therein. I think the attempt was to claim the base alone, without the ball and tee, but who would know? Here, perhaps, the attempt is to claim the ball and tee in combination with the base. There is uncertainty of description. Again we have a “dominant feature” clause, which appears to be meaningless because the drawings contain no dotted or broken lines.
Since I cannot subscribe, moreover, to the double patenting rejection as stated by either the examiner or the board, which involved prior art not mentioned by the majority in a kind of obviousness-type double patenting rejection, I express no opinion on that rejection.