Appeal No. 2000-0198 Page 3
Application No. 08/400,178
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The appellant’s invention is directed to a system for allowing trials to determine the
dimensions of a replacement prosthesis to be surgically implanted in the medullary canal
of a bone of an individual patient during an operation and for producing a custom trial
prosthesis to articulate with a coacting articulation surface of a joint during trial reduction of
the joint. As manifested in independent claim 22, the invention comprises a plurality of trial
head components of different dimensions, a plurality of trial stem components of different
dimensions, and a quick release interlock means for joining a selected trial head
component to a selected trial stem component to produce a custom prosthesis. It is the
examiner’s view that all of the subject matter rejected in this claim is disclosed in Kenna,
except for providing multiple components in different sizes and release interlock means
that operate in the longitudinal direction, both of which are required by the claim. However,
the examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
modify the Kenna system by providing multiple sizes of components in order to implant the
devices in patients of different sizes, in view of the teachings of Demane, and to utilize a
longitudinally operating release interlock means, in view of Schelhas.
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller,
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