Court Opinion

ID: 9454551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:49:44.705603+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:09.850893
License: Public Domain

BALDWIN, Judge
(concurring).
Although I agree with the majority opinion and decision, I feel called upon to comment further in regard to the Patent Office’s handling of a terminal disclaimer filed (albeit “not timely” under the existing criteria) in an effort to eliminate an obviousness-type double patenting rejection. Inasmuch as applicants have no right under the existing statutes or -present Rules of Practice to have a terminal disclaimer considered by *808the Board of Appeals or the examiner anytime after decision on appeal (or even after a final rejection), I am constrained to say that we cannot consider the matter for the first time, the Patent Office having declined to do so. What I find inexplicable is the failure of the Patent Office administration to provide appropriate procedural mechanisms for the consideration of a terminal disclaimer at any stage, as a matter of right, where a legal issue or controversy may be so easily and apparently obviated, thereby conserving judicial manpower. Here, the latter half of the majority opinion deals with an issue which would not even be before us but for the Patent Office’s procedural restraints. Indeed, the Patent Office should encourage applicants to file terminal disclaimers to obviate obviousness-type double patenting rejections where the applicants are so inclined; it might even serve to reduce the Patent Office backlog about which we are so constantly advised. Moreover, it would be commendable for the Patent Office to join an appellant who should petition this court for remand of a pending appeal to the Patent Office for consideration of a terminal disclaimer filed, or sought to be filed, even after the filing of a notice of appeal to this court.