Appeal No. 2002-1316
Application No. 09/049,036
installed, “shielding member 17 is tightly compressed between the
container cover and wall so that the filaments of the shielding
member form a low resistance electrical contact with the adjacent
surfaces” (column 3, lines 64 through 67).
In proposing to combine Harada and Hartwell to reject claim
1, the examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art “to modify the Harada . . . device
as taught by . . . Hartwell for the purpose of making a good
electrical contact between a shielding member (a gasket) and
surfaces (conducting walls)” (answer, page 4).
There is nothing in the combined teachings of Harada and
Hartwell, however, which indicates that the electrical contact
provided by Harada’s elastic conductive shielding member 16 is in
any sense lacking. To the contrary, Harada seemingly expresses a
preference for the “slight” conductive contact afforded by the
elastic conductive shielding member 16 as opposed to “strong”
conductive contact of the type ostensibly afforded by Hartwell’s
tightly compressed elastic conductive filamentary shielding
member 17. In this light, the appellant’s argument that the
proposed combination of Harada and Hartwell advanced by the
examiner stems solely from impermissible hindsight is persuasive.
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