Appeal No. 97-0399
Application 07/783,113
making Horn’s device convertible into a tripod support, as
proposed by the examiner. In this regard, it would appear
that such a modification would result in a device that is
unwieldy and ill suited for use as either a monopod or a
tripod.
Turning to the secondary references, while Dalton, Kohno,
and Kawazoe each deal in one form or another with tripod
supports, their collective teachings do not serve to make up
for the basic deficiencies of Horn. The situation here before
us appears to be of the type presented in In re Fritch, 972
F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1784 (Fed. Cir. 1992), where
our reviewing court stated:
It is impermissible to use the claimed invention as
an instruction manual or "template" to piece
together the teachings of the prior art so that the
claimed invention is rendered obvious. This court
has previously stated that "[o]ne cannot use
hindsight reconstruction to pick and choose among
isolated disclosures in the prior art to deprecate
the claimed invention" (citations omitted).
Simply put, it is our view that the examiner has impermissibly
used the appellants’ disclosure as a guide in interpreting the
teachings of the secondary references in order to reconstruct
a facsimile of the claimed subject matter.
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