Appeal No. 97-0773
Application No. 08/101,391
proximal end, and an axial bore extending therethrough, as
required by claim 1. A needle 10 is disposed within the bore of
the catheter adjacent the distal end with its sharp end 11
extending outwardly beyond the distal end and its opposite end
extending through a slit 33 in the wall of the catheter between
the distal end and the proximal end. As is the case in the
appellant’s invention, intravenous access is gained by means of
the sharp end of the needle, which is then withdrawn so that the
catheter can be advanced.
We agree with the examiner that claim 23 does not
distinguish over Guttman insofar as the “central applications”
limitation is concerned. An object of the Guttman invention is
to provide an intravenous catheter “which may be of any desired
length” (column 1, lines 39-41), and with regard to the
embodiment of Figure 5 the patentee states in column 2, lines 62-
65 that
[t]his embodiment of this invention allows the
insertion of a catheter of any length desired. The
length of the catheter is no longer limited by the
stylet 10 or other device used to insert it.
From our perspective, this would have indicated to one of
ordinary skill in the art that the Guttman catheter is not
limited to peripheral applications, as argued by the appellant,
but also is capable of being used in applications wherein a
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