Appeal No. 2000-0655 Page 4
Application No. 08/522,017
of ordinary skill in the art, including not only the specific teachings, but also the inferences
which one of ordinary skill in the art would reasonably have been expected to draw
therefrom. See In re Boe, 355 F.2d 961, 965, 148 USPQ 507, 510 (CCPA 1966) and In
re Preda, 401 F.2d 825, 826, 159 USPQ 342, 344 (CCPA 1968).
The appellants’ invention is directed to improvements in quick connect coupling
devices. The claims on appeal recite a structure whose objective is to facilitate the correct
alignment of a pilot member, in which a fluid handling member is received, with respect to
the housing in which it is installed during the assembly process. The first rejection is that
claim 11 is unpatentable over Bartholomew in view of Berry. It is the examiner’s view that
in Figure 36 Bartholomew discloses a housing (530, 548), a retainer (546), a fluid handling
member (532), and a pilot member (bushing 550) for guiding the fluid handling member
into the bore, all as required by the appellants’ claim 11. The examiner concedes that the
claimed circumferentially spaced axial ribs at the outer peripheral surface of the pilot
member are not disclosed by Bartholomew, but points out that this feature is taught by
Berry and concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
provide such fins on the pilot member of Bartholomew in view of Berry’s teaching that such
would improve the device by locking the components together.
In the quick connector shown in Bartholomew’s Figure 36, a fluid handling member
532 appears inherently to be centered as it is guided into place by the action of its tapered
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