Appeal 2007-0838
Application 09/851,242
In addition, Appellants make reference to a Declaration of Charles
Runkle, one of the named co-inventors of the subject application, as well as
a named co-inventor of the applied prior art Mancusi reference (Reply Br.
18-20) in support of the asserted lack of a teaching of two potting steps in
Mancusi. The Declaration of Charles Runkle was submitted on December
23, 2002 (Certificate of Mailing dated December 17, 2002) as part of a
Reply to a non-final Office Action. However, the Brief does not include a
copy of the Declaration of Charles Runkle or make reference thereto in an
Appendix thereof.
Hence, the principal issues before us with respect to this ground of
rejection are: Have Appellants identified reversible error in the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of representative claim 1 based on the asserted lack of
a teaching or suggestion of the second potting step in Mancusi and/or the
asserted lack of reason or suggestion to modify Mancusi taken with Bikson
in a manner so as to result in the claimed subject matter including the use of
a second potting step based on the evidence of record?
We answer these questions in the negative. Hence, we affirm the
Examiner’s Rejection (H); that is, the rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 5, and 19
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Mancusi in view of
Bikson for the reasons set forth in the Answer and below.
Mancusi discloses that after a winding and a potting step, the structure
formed from the potted wound hollow fiber fabric and core tube is placed in
a shell (housing) and sealed to an interior of the housing (shell) to form a
cartridge (col. 8, l. 8 – col. 9, l. 27).
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