Appeal 2006-3287
Application 10/022,996
Appellants do not present separate arguments for any particular claim
on appeal. Accordingly, all of the appealed claims stand or fall together
with claim 8.
We have thoroughly reviewed each of Appellants' arguments for
patentability. However, we are in complete agreement with the Examiner
that the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art within the meaning of § 103 in view of the applied prior art.
Accordingly, we will sustain the Examiner's rejection for essentially those
reasons expressed in the Answer, and we add the following primarily for
emphasis.
Appellants do not dispute the Examiner's factual determination that
Lam discloses the provision of a stent that is mounted on a catheter having
long and short balloons thereon. Also, Appellants do not contest the
Examiner's legal conclusion that it would have been obvious for one of
ordinary skill in the art to employ a stent constructed of a plurality of rings
in the invention of Lam. Rather, the sole issue argued by Appellants is that
"[t]he Lam patent discloses multiple balloons axially aligned, not side by
side" (page 12 of principal Br., 3rd para.). Appellants contend that "[t]he
specification and drawings of the present application clearly show that the
claim term 'side by side' is intended to mean that the longer side of the long
balloon (117) is positioned next to the longer side of the short balloon (129)
during mounting as shown for example, for example, [sic] in FIG. 34 of the
present patent application" (page 4 of Reply Br., first sentence). Appellants
urge that their "drawings clearly show that the claim term 'side by side'
should not be given the overly broad meanings of 'end-to-end,' 'by-the-side,'
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