Patent already filed for this design 11 years ago

Question

In reference to the patent: WO2016138171A1

The exact same design had a patent applied for it in 2005 by Eric Vaughn, it was ultimately rejected and has since been abandoned. It should have been accepted, and the only other patent that came close was from 1942, by Carroll G Wells, https://www.google.com/patents/US2315889 My name is Eric Vaughn, and I was not granted the patent. Jake Sullivan was a business partner of mine, along with Don Wildman. I contend that they should not be granted this patent since it has already been invented. Interesting that they claim to be the "inventors."

Answer 1

The document linked is only an application and not yet a patent. There is also a US application associated with it. Your rejected patent application is prior art as is US235889. There are mechanisms for you to make the patent authorities aware of prior art. Check out this site for more information. Be very careful to compare the claims of the application to the claims in your failed application as they might not be identical.