Appeal No. 97-3345
Application 08/332,936
readily perceive the teachings of Shibahara and Nemoto to be
reasonably pertinent to pipelaying problems and arrangements
of concern to McGugan as well as appellant, and hence 3
analogous prior art. Further, assessed as a whole, and
contrary to appellant’s point of view, we consider the applied
teachings to be suggestive of the claimed invention, without
impermissible hindsight reliance upon appellant’s own
teaching.
In summary, this panel of the board has:
affirmed the rejection of claims 14 through 18, and
33 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over McGugan in
view of Sweeney and St. Onge, but reversed the rejection of
claim 34 on this same ground;
3We note that appellant contemplated not only horizontal
pipe orientation, but also vertical orientation
(specification, page 8, lines 25 through 28).
13
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