Appeal No. 1999-1064 Page 5
Application No. 08/654,766
in the manner and detail to which each of these components is
described. The examiner has combined the teachings of six
references in order to arrive at the conclusion that each of
the claims is unpatentable, and the appellants have argued in
general that the examiner has provided no valid reasons why one
of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to
combine the teachings of the six references in the manner
proposed by the examiner, and in particular that there would
have been no suggestion to replace the solid piece disclosed in
the British reference with that of the Japanese reference. We
need look no further than that argument to determine that the
rejection cannot be sustained.
One of the structural limitations recited in all four of
the independent claims is that the solid piece introduced into
the gel-like material has “an essentially uniform cross-
sectional area along its entire longitudinal length.” The
British reference discloses an ink follower comprising a small
quantity of viscous oil (7) at the top of the column of ink,
and a solid piece (plug 5) partially submerged in the oil. As
pictured in Figure 1, the solid piece has a cylindrical body
bounded by upper and lower circumferential flanges (6), and in
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