Appeal No. 1998-1493
Application No. 08/377,861
directs attention to four patents of record in which swirlers
are disclosed, and provides three pages from a publication
which he urges support his contention that swirlers create
areas of low pressure.
As stated in In re Marzocchi, 439 F.2d 220, 224, 169 USPQ
367, 370 (CCPA 1971), with regard to the issue of the support
provided in the disclosure, it is incumbent upon the Patent
Office, whenever a rejection on this basis is made, to explain
why it doubts the truth or accuracy of any statement in a
supporting disclosure and to back up assertions of its own
with acceptable evidence or reasoning which is inconsistent
with the contested statement. Otherwise, there would be no
need for the applicant to go to the trouble and expense of
supporting his presumptively accurate disclosure.
The appellant has shown and described the swirler in the
disclosure and, in response to the examiner's rejection, has
supplemented this by evidence supporting his position that
swirlers were known in the art and would function in the
manner stated in his specification and claims. The
dispositive issue is whether the appellant's disclosure,
considering the level of ordinary skill in the art as of the
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