Appeal No. 1998-2035
Application 08/458,783
felt wicking material saturated with a
lubricating fluid for transferring the
liquid to the cup rim before it contacts
the curling channel in view of Lyon and
Daniels so as to further reduce frictional
force between the rim of the cup and
curling channel and prevent damage to the
curled cup.
Appellants argue (brief, page 5) that neither Lyon
nor Daniels provides any disclosure whatsoever that would have
led an ordinarily skilled person to include a porous liquid
transfer ring in Ruza. As set forth above, teachings of
references can be combined only if there is some suggestion or
incentive to do so.
Here the prior art contains none. The disparate teachings of
the applied prior art and the manner in which they are
proposed to be combined indicate, in our view, that the
examiner has engaged in an impermissible hindsight
reconstruction of the appellants’ invention using the claims
as a template to selectively piece together isolated
disclosures in the prior art. Even if the Lyon and Daniels
references are considered to be analogous prior art, the
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