Appeal No. 2000-0448
Application No. 08/605,765
Turning now to the remaining claims, the basis of the
rejection under § 103(a) is set forth on pages 2 and 3 of the
Examiner’s Answer. In essence, the examiner finds that it
would have been obvious, in view of Brunelle, to apply high
frequency electrical energy instead of the DC voltage applied
by Guglielmi.
First considering claim 1, appellant argues that it would
not have been obvious to combine the references as proposed by
the examiner because (1) neither reference discloses enhancing
the occlusion of a partially occluded vessel, (2) neither
reference discloses a vaso-occlusive element deployed at the
target site before applying high frequency energy, and (3)
neither reference discloses applying high frequency energy to
and through a pre-deployed element to thermally damage the
lumenal wall (brief, pages 9 and 10). Also appellant contends
that Guglielmi teaches against applying energy which would
cause injury to the vessel wall (brief, pages 14 and 15).
We do not agree with these arguments. As to argument
(1), while the preamble of claim 1 does recite "A method of
enhancing occlusion," the claim does not specify that the
vessel is partially occluded. The argument is therefore not
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