Appeal No. 94-3296
Application No. 07/878,899
Claims 6 through 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over either Kitami ’736 or Kitami ’036 in view of
Powers. We reverse.3
Appellants do not dispute that the Kitami references
disclose the claimed hose except for a cover tube made up of the
claimed vulcanizate. See the Brief and Reply Brief in their
entirety. Nor do appellants dispute that the Powers reference
discloses the claimed vulcanizate. See the Brief, page 8.
Appellants, however, disagree with the examiner’s contention that
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
employ the vulcanizate of the Powers reference to form the cover
tube of the Kitami references’ refrigerant transport hose. Id.
The dispositive question is, therefore, whether making the cover
tube of the Kitami references’ refrigerant transport hose with
the vulcanizate described in the Powers reference would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
We answer this question in the negative. As correctly
observed by appellants, neither the Kitami references nor the
3Although it appears that the examiner has altered the
§ 103 rejection based on both the Kitami references and the
Powers reference to the § 103 rejection based on either the
Kitami references in view of the Powers reference (compare the
final rejection with the Answer), we observe no difference in
the results.
3
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