Appeal No. 95-3598
Application 08/125,671
a patient. For these reasons alone, we would refuse to sustain
the examiner's rejection of claims 1, 11 through 13 and 18
through 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 based on the Fisher publication,
since we consider that the examiner has engaged in the
impermissible use of hindsight in concluding that appellants'
claimed invention would have been obvious from the disclosure of
the Fisher publication.
Moreover, we must also agree with appellants that none
of the references relied upon by the examiner, whether viewed
individually or collectively, would have suggested using a
robotic instrument like that of the claims on appeal in
laparoscopic surgery, or disclose or suggest a laser-transmitting
optical fiber for cauterizing organic tissue (claim 1), or a
fluid transfer means for conveying fluid between a patient's
abdominal cavity and an environment external to the patient
(claim 11), connected to the distal end of such an instrument in
the manner set forth in claims 1 and 11 on appeal. Thus, even
when the teachings of Zarudiansky and Vise are taken into
consideration in the rejection of claims 4, 7 through 10, 14
15
Page: Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007