Appeal No. 97-3292
Application 08/522,827
The Shipp patent, for example, reveals the known practice
relative to the use of a trocar wherein a blade (clearly
suggestive of a solid needle) is removed from the trocar in
order to allow surgical instruments to pass therethrough. We
are in accord with the examiner’s view that the combined
teachings of Alfano and Shipp or Wilk would have clearly been
suggestive to one having ordinary skill in the art of
inserting the probe disclosed by Alfano through a hollow tube
previously inserted (with a solid needle subsequently removed)
to obtain the expected advantage thereof.
The Janes patent makes us aware that, at the time of
appellants’ invention, it was a known practice in the art to
follow an in-vivo optical diagnosis of tissue (system of Fig.
14 using a probe 268) with the removal of samples (column 2,
lines 34 through 36 and column 6, lines 60 through 62). With
this latter knowledge, it is clear to this panel of the board
that one having ordinary skill in the art would have
additionally found it obvious to take a sample subsequent to
practicing the modified Alfano procedure, supra, for the self
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