Appeal No. 1997-2275
Application No. 08/390,281
columns 7 and 8 of the Coke patent) so as to employ relatively
small granular particles.
In essence, the deficiency of the examiner’s rejection
lies in the fact that none of the applied references including
Sorathia contains any teaching or suggestion of avoiding a
clog-problem of the type under consideration by separately
introducing particulate material and the binder therefor into
a nozzle where these ingredients are combined into a stream
which is then dispensed from the nozzle in accordance with the
here claimed method. It is only the appellant’s own
disclosure which contains any such teaching. It is reasonably
apparent, therefore, that the examiner’s rejection is based
upon impermissible hindsight derived from the appellant’s own
disclosure rather than a teaching, suggestion or incentive
derived from the applied prior art. W.L. Gore & Assocs. v.
Garlock, Inc., 741 F.2d 1540, 1553, 220 USPQ 303, 312-313
(Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, U.S. 851 (1984).
Under the circumstances recounted above, we cannot
sustain the examiner’s section 103 rejection of the appealed
claims as being unpatentable over Coke in view of Sorathia and
Fritz.
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007