Appeal No. 2000-0500
Application No. 09/006,137
It appears that the examiner has lost sight of the need
for the applied reference to actually disclose or teach the
recited steps of appellants' claimed method either expressly
or under principles of inherency in order for the reference to
anticipate the claimed subject matter. The mere fact that the
jacket and harness of Williams may under some circumstance be
capable of being used in the manner set forth in appellants'
claims on appeal is irrelevant, since the reference does not
disclose, teach or suggest any such use of the apparel
therein, nor any steps to accomplish such a use. In this
regard, we note that it is well settled that inherency may not
be established by probabilities or possibilities, but must
instead be "the natural result flowing from the operation as
taught." See In re Oelrich, 666 F.2d 578, 581-82, 212 USPQ
323, 326 (CCPA 1981). In the present case, the disclosure of
the Williams patent does not provide any factual basis to
establish that the natural result flowing from following the
teachings of that reference would be a method like that
disclosed and claimed by appellants.
Since all the limitations of appellants' independent
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