Appeal No. 1998-0277
Application No. 08/478,009
containment pipe as the first pipe of Windle and a second double
containment pipe as the second pipe of Windle in the process of
Windle.
Appellants acknowledge the examiner's recognition that
Windle does not teach and, alone, would not have been suggestive
of the fabrication of double containment pipes, as claimed
(brief, page 13). As to the Ziu '260 reference, appellants point
out that it only teaches joining straight double containment
lengths and is merely cumulative of art cited by appellants.3
Appellants do not perceive either the Ziu '088 or Butts reference
as being suggestive of providing a branch double containment pipe
in Windle and heating it with a heater as in Ziu '260. In
appellants' view, the proposed combination of teachings is made
with inappropriate hindsight and the benefit of the present
disclosure.
We fully appreciate the examiner's point of view in the
matter of the asserted obviousness of the claimed subject matter.
3 It appears to us that appellants may, for example, be
referring to the prior art discussed on page 3 of the
specification which we referenced earlier in this opinion.
6
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