Appeal No. 98-2783
Application 08/450,009
FRANKFORT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal from the examiner's final
rejection of claims 1 through 10 and 28. Claims 11 through 27 and
29, all the other claims pending in the application, stand allowed.
Appellants’ invention relates to an implantable prosthetic
device for sustaining a blood vessel or hollow organ lumen. As can
be seen, for example, in Figure 6, the device is in the form of a
tubular shaped wire frame (1) having a hollow cylinder body (13)
wherein interconnected cells (2) are shaped and arranged to provide
the frame with a large stiffness in the radial direction and only low
stiffness in the axial direction so that the device without risk of
traumatization will keep the blood vessel or hollow body lumen open,
even if the latter changes shape due to external loads. Independent
claim 1 is representative of the subject matter on appeal and a copy
of that claim is attached to this decision.
The sole prior art reference relied upon by the examiner
in rejecting the appealed claims is:
2
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