Appeal No. 2000-0004 Page 8
Application No. 08/872,004
1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988). Rejections based on
§ 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). Our reviewing court has repeatedly cautioned
against employing hindsight by using the appellant's disclosure
as a blueprint to reconstruct the claimed invention from the
isolated teachings of the prior art. See, e.g., Grain Processing
Corp. v. American Maize-Products Co., 840 F.2d 902, 907, 5 USPQ2d
1788, 1792 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
In support of this rejection, the examiner states:
The Hasselquist reference discloses a
collapsible container 10, 14, 15, which can
be employed as a stock watering tank. It
would have been obvious to one skilled in the
art to employ the Hasselquist collapsible
container with an animal wearing the McBride
protective collar, in order to provide the
animal with drinking water while in the
field. The sheath of McBride is physically
insertable into the empty bowl of Hasselquist
whereupon the folded sheath would provide
sidewall support. [final rejection at page
3](emphasis in original).
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007