Appeal No. 2000-0526
Application No. 08/818,958
examiner then concludes that, in light of the combined
teachings of Farris I and Farris II, it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to close off the
gas chamber of Farris I as taught by Farris II "since it is
well desired that no gas/air be injected into the patient due
to the ill effects that may occur therefrom" (answer, page 5).
The appellant argues that there is no teaching in the
prior art applied by the examiner of bending the passageway
closed as required by claim 3 (brief, page 12). We disagree.
In column 5, lines 45-57, Farris II teaches sealing the
passage 40 (and hence the chamber 22) from the container 12 by
applying compressive forces to the walls of the passage to
bring the inside wall surfaces 41, which either have adhesive
applied thereto or are provided with tongue and groove
structures as illustrated in Figures 2A and 2B, into contact
to form a seal 43. From our perspective, the application of
compressive forces to the passage walls bends the walls and
thus is a step of bending the passageway closed, as recited in
claim 3. Further, it is our opinion that the teachings of
Farris II (column 3, lines 3-8; column 7, lines 20-22) are
sufficient to have motivated one of ordinary skill in the art
12
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