Appeal No. 1996-3547 Page 13
Application No. 08/089,854
that a skilled artisan would have had ample motivation to employ
such pore sizes in Jones since Jones suggests using a net form
for the prosthetic material for tissue ingrowth (column 2, lines
36-40 and Example 11). We agree.
We are not convinced by appellants' additional arguments3 of
a lack of a reasonable expectation of success in using pore sizes
as claimed in Jones from the combined teachings of Jones and
Spector. In this regard, for the reasons indicated supra
regarding Jones, we do not share appellants' viewpoint regarding
the incompatibility of the references' teachings based on the
prosthetics of Jones being allegedly only useful for soft tissue
applications and the teachings of Spector being only applicable
to hard tissue prosthetics as well as their different material
compositions. The claimed prosthetic at issue herein is not
limited to bone binding applications and the prosthetics of Jones
would not have been viewed by a skilled artisan as being limited
to soft tissue applications for reasons as generally discussed
above. See American Standard, supra. Moreover, appellants have
not substantiated their argument with objective tests showing
3The arguments and evidence advanced above regarding the
rejections of claims 13-19 and 68-106 under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102/103
over Jones are not found convincing with respect to the § 103
rejection of claim 107 for the reasons set forth above.
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