Appeal No. 97-2148
Application 08/295,829
same vein, Ayme provides no hint that such an arrangement might
be beneficial. Accordingly, the examiner’s statement that the
motivation for the proposed combination is found in the secondary
references is not understood. Likewise, the examiner’ rationale
that mounting the nib of Ayme’s auxiliary nib unit for axial
movement “to reduce wear on the nib” has no basis in the applied
references and is, at best, speculative. In this light, it is
apparent that the examiner has engaged in an impermissible
hindsight reconstruction of the claimed invention wherein the
appellants’ claims have been utilized as a template to
selectively piece together isolated disclosures in the prior art.
We therefore cannot sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of
claims 1-8, 11 and 12 as being unpatentable over Ayme in view of
Fukui and Yokosuka.
As to the Levasseur reference additionally cited by the
examiner against claims 9 and 10, we have carefully reviewed this
reference but find nothing therein which makes up for the
deficiencies of Ayme, Fukui and Yokosuka discussed above. Thus,
we also cannot sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claims 9
and 10.
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