Appeal No. 1997-3712
Application 08/474,340
The strippable packages disclosed by Miller, Kaplan argues,
would have been considered by one of ordinary skill in the art
to be suitable only for other types of sutures. See id.
Similarly, Kaplan argues that the Glick patents would have
been interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art as
requiring a tear-open package for packaging a synthetic
absorbable suture to minimize moisture permeation into the
package (page 11).
Kaplan has presented plausible reasoning as to why one of
ordinary skill in the art would not have interpreted the
applied prior art in the manner proposed by the examiner. The
examiner provides no evidence or technical reasoning to the
contrary but, rather, merely states that the declaration and
appellants’ arguments do not overcome the evidence of
obviousness (answer, page 11). Accordingly, on this record,
we conclude that the examiner has not established that, prima
facie, the combined teachings of Glick and Miller would have
fairly suggested appellants’ claimed invention to one of
ordinary skill in the art. We therefore reverse the rejection
over these references.
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