Appeal No. 95-0942
Application 07/877,772
applying inductive heating "transiently," that is, as the
wrapping progresses, to wet and bond the adhesive to the pipe, as
is required by the appellants' claim 1. From our perspective,
the examiner has engaged in an exercise of picking and choosing
features that were individually known in the prior art, and has
combined them by means of the hindsight accorded one who
previously viewed the appellants' disclosure. This of course, is
impermissible. See In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d
1780, 1784 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
The shortcomings in the rejection of independent claim 1 are
not overcome by considering the teachings of Straughan, which
additionally was applied against some of the dependent claims.
The combined teachings of the references applied by the
examiner fail to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with
regard to the subject matter of independent claim 1, and we
therefore will not sustain the rejection of this claim. It
follows, of course, that the rejections of the other claims, all
of which depend from claim 1, also cannot be sustained.
Neither of the rejections is sustained.
The decision of the examiner is reversed.
REVERSED
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