Appeal No. 96-0401 Page 8
Application No. 08/127,304
prior art or by knowledge generally available to one of
ordinary skill in the art, that would have suggested to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made
to omit the apertures (42) from the holding tray (24).
Instead, it appears to us that the examiner relied on
impermissible hindsight in reaching the determination that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
make the holding tray from a solid plate without holes for the
extended storage and analysis of biological samples.
Since all the limitations are not taught or suggested by3
the applied prior art, we will not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103
3We note that the claimed holding tray recited in claim 1
is not readable on Manns' base enclosure 26. While Manns'
base enclosure 26 does have a bottom wall without holes, the
bottom wall of Manns' base enclosure 26 is not adjacent (as
disclosed in the appellants specification adjacent encompasses
either the filter medium abutting the bottom wall of the
holding tray or the filter medium abuts a thin, i.e.,
thickness ranging from 0.005 inches to 0.020 inches, crosstalk
shield which abuts the bottom wall of the holding tray) to the
lower surface of the filter sheet 22 as shown in Figure 5.
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