Appeal No. 1997-2975
Application 08/518,856
appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our review,
we make the determinations which follow.
This panel of the board reverses the examiner’s
respective rejections of appellants’ claims under 35 U.S.C. §
103.
It is quite apparent to us that the examiner’s rejection
of, for example independent claim 20, exemplifies a classic
case of impermissible hindsight reconstruction, wherein many
references are able to be particularly combined (answer, pages
4 through 13) only because of the knowledge of an appellants’
own disclosure.
We fully comprehend the respective teachings of each of
the applied references, and certainly recognize that the
number of references applied in a rejection is not a
determinative factor in an obviousness assessment.
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 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007