Appeal No. 1998-2381
Application No. 08/304,725
Claims 1 through 7, 9 through 15, 17 through 36 and
48 through 56 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the APA in view of Fort and Rota.
The full text of the examiner's rejection and the
responses to the arguments presented by appellants appear in
the Answer mailed June 23, 1997 (Paper No. 25), while the
complete statement of appellants’ arguments can be found in
the main and reply Briefs filed April 4, 1997 and August 22,
1997(Paper Nos. 24 and 27, respectively).
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given
careful consideration to the appellants' specification and
claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the
examiner. As a consequence of our review, we conclude that
3(...continued)
1995, appellants filed a supplemental IDS (Paper No. 8½) admitting that the
Bard CPS™ system was available more than one year prior to the application
filing date. The Bard CPS™ system is described at page 8 of appellants’
specification as comprising “an oxygenator centrally located between a pump
and a heat exchanger.” An illustration of the system in the sales brochure
shows two flanking units (presumably, the pump and the heat exchanger) mounted
atop a support console and a central cavity between the flanking units. To
date, the record does not show that the examiner has fully considered this
highly relevant prior art.
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