Appeal No. 1998-1789
Application No. 08/473,129
contacting a wall of the blood vessel” (emphasis added).
While Johnson discloses elements that extend radially
outwardly of the tip of the catheter, their functions are to
prevent the tips of the light-conducting fibers from
contacting the inner wall of the vessel, and to obstruct the
flow of blood. There is no explicit teaching in the patent
that these elements maintain the catheter spaced from the
walls of the vessel and/or prevent contact between the tip of
the catheter and the vessel wall. Nor, in our opinion, is
there reason to assume that they inherently perform the tasks
set forth in the appellant’s claim 1 or are even capable of
doing so. We arrive at this conclusion for several reasons.
First, the patent does not address any problem associated with
such occurrences. Second, the patent disclosure does not
establish that the elements are strong enough to accomplish
this task. Third, the embodiments of the Johnson invention
shown in Figures 2-7 have no such outwardly extending
elements, which would indicate that Johnson has no concern for
maintaining the tip of the catheter in spaced relationship
from the blood vessel wall and preventing contact therewith,
and that the structure of the outwardly extending elements of
7
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