Appeal No. 98-0606
Application 08/553,603
anywhere, and can occur in an industrial
environment, where one may not wish to have bacteria
growing because of the possibility of impurities
affecting the work being treated by the brush in
Wells. Therefore, such a suggestion [in Braga] of
silver being used to fight bacteria could be desired
by one using the brush in Wells. [Answer, page 6-
7].
This position is not well founded. In brief, the
proposed modification is a hindsight reconstruction based on
appellants’ disclosure rather than on anything that is fairly
taught by the references themselves. In this regard, we do
not share the examiner’s view that one of ordinary skill in
the art would have considered Braga’s teaching of inhibiting
the growth of bacteria on a toothbrush to suggest application
of this concept to a general purpose brush, regardless of its
use. In any event, even if we were to accept that it would
have been obvious to modify Wells in the manner proposed,
there remains the “toothbrush” limitation in the preamble of
the claims which is not met by Wells. In light of the
foregoing, we will not sustain the examiner’s § 103 rejection
based on Wells and Braga.
-9-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007