Appeal No. 1998-3305 Page 8
Application No. 08/381,886
suggested by the applied prior art. In that regard, while
Miltner does teach two distinct portions secured together and
Wada does teach the use of split molds to form an ink storage
member, it is our opinion that such teachings would have been
insufficient to have motivated an artisan to have modified
Rott's ink conductor 16 in the manner proposed by the examiner
to arrive at the claimed invention.
In our view, the only suggestion for modifying Rott in
the manner proposed by the examiner to meet the above-noted
limitation stems from hindsight knowledge derived from the
appellant's own disclosure. The 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). It follows that we cannot sustain the
examiner's rejection of claims 8 through 13.
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