Appeal No. 1998-1650 Page 11 Application No. 08/715,749 obvious to press such grooves simultaneously with the deformation utilized by Wendel for securing and shaping the bearing insert following the teaching of Wendel that it is desirable to combine steps. The appellant argues (brief, pp. 5-11) that the examiner is "employing impermissible hindsight reconstruction" and that the applied prior art does not "teach or suggest the forming of the bearing's overall shape and the forming of the grooves in the bearing in a single manufacturing step." We agree. In our view, the only suggestion for modifying Wendel in the manner proposed by the examiner to meet the limitations of claims 24 and 25 stems from hindsight knowledge derived from the appellant's own disclosure. Specifically, it is our6 opinion that the combined teachings of Wendel and Murray would not have been suggestive of providing Wendel's conical bearing step 4 with grooves which are formed simultaneously with the formation of Wendel's conical bearing step 4. 6The use of such hindsight knowledge to support an obviousness rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is, of course, impermissible. See, for example, W. L. Gore and Associates, Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1553, 220 USPQ 303, 312- 13 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984).Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007