Appeal No. 94-3296 Application No. 07/878,899 Claims 6 through 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. � 103 as unpatentable over either Kitami ’736 or Kitami ’036 in view of Powers. We reverse.3 Appellants do not dispute that the Kitami references disclose the claimed hose except for a cover tube made up of the claimed vulcanizate. See the Brief and Reply Brief in their entirety. Nor do appellants dispute that the Powers reference discloses the claimed vulcanizate. See the Brief, page 8. Appellants, however, disagree with the examiner’s contention that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to employ the vulcanizate of the Powers reference to form the cover tube of the Kitami references’ refrigerant transport hose. Id. The dispositive question is, therefore, whether making the cover tube of the Kitami references’ refrigerant transport hose with the vulcanizate described in the Powers reference would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. We answer this question in the negative. As correctly observed by appellants, neither the Kitami references nor the 3Although it appears that the examiner has altered the � 103 rejection based on both the Kitami references and the Powers reference to the � 103 rejection based on either the Kitami references in view of the Powers reference (compare the final rejection with the Answer), we observe no difference in the results. 3Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007