Appeal No. 95-4246
Application 08/201,052
consider the means for introducing a purging gas of claim 24
to be readable on the bore 46 in appellant’s handpiece, and
the means for venting of claim 25 to be readable on the holes
70, 72 of appellant’s handpiece. The examiner’s position that
it would have been obvious to provide Sharon’s tip member with
a port for introducing a purging gas therein and a port for
venting debris and purging gas therefrom in view of the
teachings of Johnson at gas inlet port 18 and gas outlet port
20 is reasonable and has not been specifically disputed by
appellants. Accordingly, we will sustain the standing
rejection of claims 24-27 as being unpatentable over Sharon in
view of McFee and Johnson.6
Claim 28 depends from claim 18 and further requires that
the contacting wall is thermally insulating. In that the tip
member 100 of Sharon’s Figure 11 embodiment and the protector
of McFee may be made of glass (Sharon, column 5, lines 28-30;
McFee, page 2, line 35), which is a thermally insulating
material at least to some degree, the subject matter of this
6In that claim 27 depends directly from claim 18 and does
not add anything to claim 18 above and beyond that disclosed
by Sharon, it is not clear why this claim is grouped with
claims 24-26.
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