Appeal No. 1996-2197
Application 08/150,548
In reaching our conclusion on the issues raised in this
appeal, we have carefully considered appellants’ specification
and claims, the applied prior art, and the respective
viewpoints of appellants and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we are in general agreement with appellants
(Brief, pages 3 to 6; Reply Brief, pages 1 to 5) that the
claims on appeal would not have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made
in light of the teachings of appellants’
Figures 17 to 23. For the reasons which follow, we will not
sustain the decision of the examiner rejecting claims 5 to 12
under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
At the outset, we note that it must be recognized that
any judgement on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a
reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning. But so long as
it takes into account only knowledge which was within the
level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was
made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from the
applicant’s disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. See
5
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