Appeal No. 1997-0736
Application No. 08/384,916
OPINION
In reaching our conclusion on the obviousness issues
raised in this appeal, this panel of the board has carefully
considered appellants’ specification and claims, the applied
teachings, and the respective viewpoints of appellants and3
the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we make the
determinations which follow.
Initially, we appreciate from a reading of the BACKGROUND
OF THE INVENTION section of appellants’ specification (page 1)
that prior to the present invention it was known to employ an
exhaust control valve in the exhaust port of a two-cycle
internal combustion engine to vary the compression ratio of
the engine. As expressed by appellants, "[f]or the most
part" these exhaust valves have been limited to in-line types
3In our evaluation of the applied teachings, we have
considered all of the disclosure of each teaching for what it
would have fairly taught one of ordinary skill in the art.
See In re Boe, 355 F.2d 961, 965, 148 USPQ 507, 510 (CCPA
1966). Additionally, this panel of the board has taken into
account not only the specific teachings, but also the
inferences which one skilled in the art would reasonably have
been expected to draw from the disclosure. See In re Preda
401 F.2d 825, 826, 159 USPQ 342, 344 (CCPA 1968).
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007