Appeal No. 96-0877
Application 08/123,639
indefinite. Instead, on page 7 of the main brief, appellant
concedes the correctness of the examiner’s position that, in
substance, there is no antecedent basis in claim 1 for ?[a]n
implantable prosthetic heart valve? as recited in claims 2, 3
and 9. Accordingly, we will sustain the rejection of claims 2,
3 and 9 under the second paragraph of § 112.
With regard to the § 103 rejection, the examiner has made
the finding that the ultrasonic transducers 124 and 126 in
Carey’s device must impart vibratory energy to the prosthetic
heart valve member 120 because it lies in the path of the
ultrasonic vibrations traveling to the elastomeric measurement
windows 138 and 140. The only arguments traversing this
rejection are as follows:
There is no teaching or suggestion that
ultrasonic transducers 124 and 126 provide
vibratory energy to the heart valve 120 or
valve 108. To the contrary, ultrasonic
energy is generated to measure flow
characteristics of the blood-mimicking
fluid. There is no suggestion for
positioning transducers 124 or 126 on the
prosthetic valve housing or is in any way
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