Appeal No. 1999-0369
Application No. 08/575,926
for its intended purpose of receiving exudate. Stated
differently, we view claim 19 as implicitly requiring that the
spacer physically occupy a portion of the reservoir in a
manner that causes a sufficient void volume in the reservoir
to be maintained. This clearly is not the case in Foreman.
Instead, as pointed out above, Foreman’s spacing means 76, 77
functions to maintain a sufficient void volume in the
reservoir by means of an “elastic gathering action” (column 5,
lines 2-3) that causes the material of the tunnel to pucker
and thereby stand away from surface 40.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) rejection of independent claim 19, or claims 27-31,
33, 48 and 50 that depend therefrom, as being anticipated by
Foreman.
Independent claim 1 sets forth the relationship between
the spacer and the reservoir in essentially the same terms as
claim 19, and additionally requires that the spacer is
compressible to a limited degree by the body of the user.
Hence, for at least the reasons set forth above in our
treatment of claim 19, we shall not sustain the standing 35
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