Appeal No. 1999-0067
Application 08/533,305
as an instruction manual or "template" to piece
together the teachings of the prior art so that the
claimed invention is rendered obvious. This court
has previously stated that "[o]ne cannot use
hindsight reconstruction to pick and choose among
isolated disclosures in the prior art to deprecate
the claimed invention" (citations omitted).
Consideration of Smith, III, which was cited for its teaching
of utilizing an axially compressible hollow metal seal, does
not alter our conclusion that the rejection of independent
claim 18 should not be sustained.
Independent claims 19, 24 and 28 set forth the invention
in somewhat different terms, but each includes elements that
project radially from the male member and are received by a
helical groove and slots in the receiving chamber of the
female member. Therefore, for the same reasons as were
expressed above with regard to claim 18, it is our conclusion
that the teachings of the three applied references fail to
establish prima facie cases of obviousness with regard to the
subject matter recited in these claims and, it follows, of
those which depend from them.
SUMMARY
The rejection of claims 18-21, 23-25 and 27-33 as being
-10-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007