Appeal 2007-0850
Application 10/733,292
To summarize, one of ordinary skill viewing Piplani would have
reasonably concluded that the disclosed device meets all the limitations in
claims 12-16, 19, 20, 22, and 24-36.
6. OBVIOUSNESS OVER PIPLANI
Under the provisions of 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b), we enter the following
new ground of rejection: claims 17, 18, 21, and 23 are rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over Piplani and Kornberg.
As discussed supra, Piplani describes a prosthetic device meeting all
of the limitations of claims 12-16, 19, 20, 22, and 24-36. Piplani does not
disclose that the apical wire structure is formed of stainless steel, as recited
in claim 17, or of biocompatible plastic, as recited in claim 18. Nor does
Piplani disclose that the apices are formed of a malleable material, as recited
in claims 21 and 23.
However, as pointed out by the Examiner (Answer 5), Kornberg
teaches that “flexible resilient plastic” and “surgical steel” were known to be
suitable as support materials for aortic grafts (Kornberg, col. 4, ll. 8-17 and
25-29). Because malleable plastic and surgical steel were known to be
useful as support materials for aortic grafts, one of ordinary skill would have
considered it obvious to use those materials to construct the expandable
spring attachment that supports Piplani’s graft device.
Appellants argue that the combination of Piplani and Kornberg does
not render claims 17 and 18 obvious because Kornberg does not remedy
Piplani’s failure to anticipate independent claim 12 (Br. 16-17). We do not
find this argument persuasive. As discussed supra, in our view, one of
13
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013