In re Hirschhorn

Appellant in his application for a patent relating to tea balls and their method of manufacture submitted both method and article claims. The Examiner of the United States Patent Office required division between the method claims and the article claims and pending appeal the appellant elected to prosecute his method claims.

The examiner rejected all of the method claims, 1 to 8. Upon appeal to the Board of Appeals it allowed claims 3 and 4, reversing the examiner as to these claims. Claims 9 to 13, the article claims, were rejected upon the ground of misjoinder, that is to say, they were…