Appeal No. 1999-1744
Application No. 08/743,521
From the above, it is apparent that the examiner
considers hook 17 and tip 18 of Cripps as corresponding to the
claimed branches of the “forked end” of the fishhook remover. 2
However, the examiner has not explained how these elements
constitute “divergent” branches of a forked end, as now
claimed. Apparently, the examiner is of the view that because
the looped portion of hook 17 is slightly upturned at its
extremity when viewed from the side (as seen, for example, in
Figure 1), the hook 17 can be considered to “diverge” relative
to the tip 18. While this may arguably be true to a certain
extent at selected times during operation of the Cripps
device, as when the hook 17 is retracted relative to the tip
18 (see column 2, lines 15-19), it is not generally the case.
For this reason, we consider that it is debatable whether the
Cripps device can be fairly said to meet the “divergent
branches” limitation of independent claims 2 and 12.
In any event, even if we were to agree with the
examiner’s determination that elements 17 and 18 of Cripps
comprise divergent branches of a forked end of the device,
2In a functional sense, it appears to us that the V-shaped
end of tip 18 of Cripps more closely corresponds to
appellant’s “forked end having divergent branches.”
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007