Appeal No. 96-1416
Application 08/118,066
We have carefully reviewed the rejections of the claims on appeal in light of
appellant’s specification, Brief, and the Examiner’s Answer. As a result of this review,
we have determined that the examiner has not established a prima facie case of
obviousness with respect to the claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103, nor has the
examiner established the indefiniteness of claims 1 through 5 and 9. Therefore the
rejections of the claims on appeal will be reversed.
With respect to the obviousness rejection of the claims on appeal we note that
the appellant has argued that the external threaded insert member of Vickers does not
have a polygonal-shaped internal channel extending therethrough. See Brief at page
7. It is our finding that Vickers discloses an externally threaded insert member having a
polygonal channel at the exterior end and a polygonal channel at the interior end.
These two channels are connected by a smaller bore of generally circular cylindrical
shape. Thus the polygonal channel of Vickers does not extend through the externally
threaded insert member. Since Vickers neither teaches nor suggests a polygonal
shaped internal channel extending through the threaded insert member, and neither
Dzus nor Cuss can cure the deficiencies of Vickers with a teaching or suggestion of
such an internal channel, the prior art taken as a whole does not establish a prima
facie case of obviousness with respect to the group of claims containing claim 1.
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