Appeal No. 95-4860 Application No. 08/044,923 threaded hub 24 of the anchor 13 has the capability of being threaded on and off the outer shaft 11 as desired and, thus, the anchor 13 is inherently “removably supported” (independent claim 12) or “removably coupled” (independent claim 15) on the outer shaft 11. This being the case, there is adequate descriptive support for these limitations and we will not sustain the rejection of claims 12-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph. Turning now to the rejection of claim 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) and the rejection of claims 13 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Grunsky, each of these rejections is based on the examiner’s view that the anchor 29 of Grunsky can be considered to be “removably supported” as set forth in independent claim 12 because the “anchor 29 is removable when the end 15, the seal 19 and collar 25 are removed” (see answer, page 4). We must point out, however, that independent claim 12 expressly requires that the intermediate support form a support for said elongated support shaft to maintain alignment of said support shaft and [sic, with respect to] said major axis of said pipeline 6Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007