Appeal No. 2003-0693
Application No. 09/006,248
of Herbermann ‘097, and (2) route hoses for carrying fluid to the
suction tools 26, 28 of Herbermann ‘097 through the interiors of
the support arms. The reason for these modifications would be to
conceal and protect the air lines and thus make them less
susceptible to damage from the surroundings in which the apparatus
operates, which benefit the ordinarily skilled artisan would have
readily derived from the teachings of the applied references.
In that Blatt ‘556 discloses elongated internal passages 35
that carry air under pressure, appellants’ argument (main brief,
page 21) that the cited references do not teach the feature of a
base having a fluid distributing manifold with at least two
parallel and elongated internal bores is not well taken. We also
do not accept appellants’ argument (main brief, page 22) that the
rejection is based on hindsight. On the contrary, in this instance
it is clear to us that the examiner’s rejection has taken into
account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill
in the art at the time of appellants’ invention, as evidenced by
the applied patents themselves, and that such knowledge would have
been suggestive to one of ordinary skill in the art of the
presently claimed subject matter as defined in claim 29.
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