Appeal No. 96-2058
Application No. 08/147,090
This venting feature is provided by a ventilator shown as
element 36 in, for example, Figure 1 and described in lines 29
through 32 in column 5 of the Gorelick patent. According to
the appellant, "[b]y common definition of a ventilator, as is
well known to the person of ordinary skill in the art, a
ventilator does not provide a vacuum" (brief, page 8). On the
record of this appeal, no evidentiary support has been
proffered by the appellant for this proposition.
Nevertheless, our independent research reveals that a
"ventilator" is defined as "[a] device used with an adjustable
aperture for regulating the flow of fresh or stagnant air" or
"[a] mechanical apparatus for producing a current of air, as a
blowing or exhaust fan" (Technical Terms, second edition, page
1712, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1978; copy attached). From
our perspective, the examiner's aforementioned inherency
position would be well founded if, in fact, the ventilator of
Gorelick constitutes "[a] mechanical apparatus for producing a
current of air, as a blowing or exhaust fan".
Based on our study of the Gorelick patent disclosure, we
find that patentees' ventilator is in fact a "mechanical
apparatus" of the above discussed type. This finding is
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