Appeal No. 1998-2851 Page 6
Application No. 08/756,901
§ 103 must rest on a factual basis with these facts being
interpreted without hindsight reconstruction of the invention
from the prior art. The examiner may not, because of doubt
that the invention is patentable, resort to speculation,
unfounded assumption or hindsight reconstruction to supply
deficiencies in the factual basis for the rejection. See In
re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017, 154 USPQ 173, 177 (CCPA 1967),
cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1057 (1968).
The appellant argues (brief, pp. 5-12) that the
combination of prior art relied upon by the examiner is
improper because there is no motivation in any of the
references to combine the references as suggested by the
examiner to arrive at the claimed invention. We agree.
All the claims under appeal recite a retainer including a
retainer wall defining a vertical bore wherein the retainer
wall includes "radially inwardly extending ridges which are
circumferentially spaced around an interior surface of said
bore." However, these limitations are not suggested by the
applied prior art. In that regard, while Gary in Figure 9
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