Obviousness-Type Double Patenting

In re Lonardo, 119 F.3d 960, 965 (Fed. Cir. 1997) See In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 1052 (Fed. Cir. 1993). The Patent Office allows a terminal disclaimer to cure an obviousness-type double patenting rejection only when the same entity owns both patents. 

To better envision an obviousness-type double patenting scenario, let s briefly rework the facts from the hypothetical of our statutory double patenting example just stated. In that example, we explained that attempting to claim the exact same compound twice (compound B) was not permissible, even though the earlier patent application was not 102 prior art. In this earlier scenario, we stated that the later patent application contained additional compounds that were not disclosed in the earlier patent application—compounds D and E. Since we have not yet discussed the analytical framework for obviousness, let s assume that compound D is an obvious... 

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