Appeal No. 96-4138
Application 08/392,609
A copy of claim 1, which is representative of the claimed
subject matter, is appended to this decision.
The following references are relied upon by the examiner as
evidence of obviousness in support of his rejection under 35
U.S.C. § 103:
Tanabe et al. (Tanabe) 4,842,590 Jun. 27, 1989
Macaulay et al. (Macaulay) 5,234,416 Aug. 10, 1993
Claims 1 through 9 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Macaulay in view of Tanabe. The
examiner’s position is as follows:
Macaulay et al. clearly teach a catheter 10 having
an outer tube 22, an inner tube 21 and a support member
5A [sic, 21] mounted there between [sic, therebetween].
The apparatus further includes a joint connecting a
catheter tip 16, which is clearly a catheter apparatus,
to the catheter 10. The joint includes, as seen in
figure 4, a counterbore within the tip and a mating
male member on the catheter. Macaulay et al. do not
teach, however, a joint within which the counterbore is
found in the catheter and the mating male member is
found on the tip.
Tanabe et al. clearly teach a catheter 11 con-
nected by a joint to another catheter apparatus, tip
12. The catheter 11 is shown as having an inner tube,
an outer tube and a support member there between [sic,
therebetween]. The joint includes a counterbore within
the catheter and a mating male member on the other
catheter apparatus. Therefore, in view of the
teachings, it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention
was made, to modify the Macaulay et al. apparatus by
forming its joint in the opposite manner, that is, in
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