In re Shapleigh

This is an appeal from a decision of the Board of Appeals of the United States Patent Office, rejecting claims 1-3,5,6,10,11,13,14, and 18-20 as unpatentable over the prior art in appellant’s application for “Furnace and Process for Treatment of Fluid Reactants.” Claims 4,7-9,12, and 15-17 were withdrawn from further consideration under Rule .142 (b) as not readable on the elected species and are thus not here on appeal.

At oral argument, counsel for appellant agreed that claims 10 and 18 were, as well, not readable on the elected species. In view of this fact and notwithstanding the fact that…