Appeal No. 1999-0098
Application No. 08/328,443
elongated member 8. Instead, Tanguy discloses at pages 13 to
14 that after the cortical is drilled by means of flexible
shaft 8 carrying drill bit 12, a drill guide is put in place
on the outer side of the skin (the flexible shaft and guide
member having removed from the bore of the nail 1, as shown in
Fig. 4D), the cortical is drilled from the outside (Fig. 4F),
and a fastener (screw 4) is placed as shown in Figs. 5 and 6.
Accordingly, since Tanguy does not disclose a fastener
"constructed to be guided by the elongated member from the
outside of the patient’s body" as recited in claims 15 and 23,
or the step of "guiding the fastener along the elongate member
from outside of the patient’s body" as recited in claims 35
and 40 , the rejection under § 102(b) of claims 15, 23, 35 and6
40, and of dependent claims 16 to 22, 24 to 31, 34, 36 to 39
and 41, will not be sustained. The rejection of dependent
claims 32 and 33 under § 103 also will not be sustained, there
being no evidence that the above-noted difference between the
system recited in parent claim 23 and Tanguy would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
6Claim 40 adds the word "extending" before "elongate" in
the quoted phrase.
13
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