Appeal No. 95-0526
Application No. 08/038,533
154 USPQ 173, 177-78 (CCPA 1967). In making such a rejection,
the examiner has the initial burden of supplying the requisite
factual basis and may not, because of doubts that the invention
is patentable, resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or
hindsight reconstruction to supply the deficiencies in the
factual basis. Id. With respect to claims 1 to 4, the combined
references do not teach or suggest a horizontal internal support
plate or that the support plate defines a plurality of openings
to frictionally engagingly accommodate the ends of the upper
portions of the micropipette tips. With respect to claim 13, the
combined references do not teach or suggest that the micropipette
tip package remains attached to the micropipette tips, when the
tips are inserted into the tip pins of the header portion of the
pipettor system. With respect to claim 15, the combined
references do not teach or suggest a horizontal internal support
plate or that the support plate defines a plurality of openings
to frictionally engagingly accommodate the ends of the upper
portions of the micropipette tips. While the examiner contends
that the foregoing limitations would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art, the record is devoid of any evidence
showing these limitations. Thus, we can only conclude that, as
cogently urged by appellants, the examiner has improperly used
hindsight reconstruction in an attempt to meet the claimed
-5-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007