Appeal No. 2000-0030
Application No. 08/723,451
(10), thus the system in Kaump cannot function as a pollution
prevention system that avoids the discharge of hazardous and
benign laboratory waste into a public sewage system and
subsequently into the environment, as required in appellants’
claim 1.
Like appellants, it is our view that the examiner’s
position in this appeal represents a clear case of
impermissible hindsight reconstruction of the claimed
invention based on appellants’ own teachings. In that regard,
we note, as our court of review indicated in In re Fritch, 972
F.2d 1260, 1266 n.15, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84 n.15 (Fed. Cir.
1992), that it is impermissible to use the claimed invention
as an instruction manual or “template” in attempting to piece
together isolated disclosures and teachings of the prior art
so that the claimed invention is rendered obvious.
Since we have determined that the teachings and
suggestions found in Been and Kaump would not have made the
subject matter as a whole of independent claims 1, 6 and 9 on
6
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