Appeal No. 2000-0185
Application 08/847,111
rigidity and strength so that a person of ordinary skill in
the art would have had some motivation or suggestion to turn
to the more complicated types of multi-piece seal structures
seen in Lusen and Weber so as to provide added rigidity and
strength as is urged by the examiner in the answer.
In the final analysis, it is clear to us from our
evaluation of the applied prior art references that the
examiner has failed to provide an adequate evidential basis to
support the § 103 rejections before us on appeal, and that the
examiner has relied upon impermissible hindsight knowledge
derived from appellants' own teachings to reconstruct the
claimed subject matter out of isolated teachings in the prior
art. Accordingly, we will not sustain the examiner's
rejection of claims 1 through 4 and 17 through 20 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Iwasaki in view of
Lusen, or that of claims 1, 5, 6, 8 through 16, 21, 22 and 24
through 34 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Iwasaki in view of Weber.
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