Appeal No. 2002-1671 Page 5
Application No. 08/993,985
The appellant argues (brief, pp. 17-18) that the above-noted crossing filament
limitation of claim 63 is not taught or suggested by the combined teachings of Kawai
and Fontaine as applied in the rejection before us in this appeal. We agree.1 Clearly,
the examiner has not correctly ascertained the differences between Kawai and claim 63
since Kawai does not teach the crossing filament limitation of claim 63. Moreover, the
examiner has not made any determination that it would have been obvious at the time
the invention was made to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Kawai's
bioabsorbable stent to have included crossing filaments as set forth in claim 63.
Accordingly, the examiner has not established a prima facie case of obviousness with
respect to claim 63 since the examiner has not found that it would have been obvious to
an artisan at the time the invention was made to have modified Kawai's stent to arrive
at the claimed invention. Accordingly, the decision of the examiner to reject claim 63
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kawai in view of Fontaine is
reversed.
Claim 56
Claim 56 is directed to a stent-graft including, inter alia, (1) a structural layer
comprising a bioabsorbable, radially compressible and radially self-expandable tubular
body; and (2) a compliant graft layer cooperating with the structural layer to form a
1 The examiner did not respond to this argument in the answer.
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