Appeal No. 1999-0737
Application 08/655,176
the membrane material. This teaching is also not found in any of the prior art applied by the examiner.
For the above reasons, the examiner’s rejection of the claims 1-6, 8-11, 14, 16, 17, 21, 23-25
and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 based on the combination of Stamper, Spirg, Takahara, and,
appellants’ admitted prior art will not be sustained.
We next consider the examiner’s rejection of claims 12, 13, 18-20, 28 and 29 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 wherein Stamper, Spirg, Takahara and appellants’ admitted prior art are combined with
Wahl. We note that these claims each ultimately depend from independent claims 1, 8, 16 and 24 and
thus include all the limitations thereof. Accordingly, it follows from our determination above that these
dependent claims would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art based on the
combined teachings of Stamper, Spirg, Takahara, and appellants’ admitted prior art. The examiner’s
reliance on Wahl to teach a specific indicator with either salts or colored pigment/meltable covering
layers (answer, page 7) does not alleviate the shortcomings of Stamper, Spirg, Takahara, and
appellants’ admitted prior art in failing to provide any teaching suggesting a reason or motivation to
combine the references and admitted prior art in the manner urged by the examiner. Accordingly, we
will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 12, 13, 18-20, 28 and 29 under 35
U.S.C. § 103.
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007