Appeal No. 95-4926
Application No. 08/101,495
The appealed claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Weder in view of Neiner and further in
view of Broussard, Sieveking, Marhevka, Brink and Usala.
This rejection cannot be sustained.
Even disregarding the appellant’s argument that certain of
the applied references are from a nonanalogous art, we still
could not sustain the examiner’s rejection. This is because the
applied prior art contains no teaching or suggestion for
combining the reference teachings in such a manner as to result
in the here claimed sterile rigid sleeve. Thus, while individual
features of the appellant’s claimed subject matter may be shown
in the applied references, it is only the appellant’s own
disclosure which provides the necessary guidance for selecting
and combining these features to thereby obtain a sterile rigid
sleeve as defined by the independent claims on appeal. Further,
this last mentioned determination is reinforced by the fact that
none of the applied reference teachings is directed to the cross-
contamination problem addressed by the appellant and the fact
that these reference teachings concern widely diverse subject
matters.
In short, we are convinced that the examiner’s rejection is
based upon impermissible hindsight derived from the appellant’s
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