Appeal No. 2000-0845 Page 6
Application No. 08/617,829
Claims 28-31 stand rejected as being unpatentable over the European Patent
Application in view of Bakx.
Claims 28-31 are dependent from claim 24, and thus include all of the limitations of
claim 24. As we determined above in the rejection of claim 24 under Section 102, the
European Patent Application fails to disclose or teach the annular-shaped member
required by the claim. No such member is disclosed or taught by Bakx. It therefore is our
4
opinion that, considering the two references in the light of Section 103, their combined
teachings fail to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the subject
matter of claims 28-31, and we will not sustain this rejection.
SUMMARY
The rejection of claims 24-27 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by the
European Patent Application is not sustained.
The rejection of claims 34-36 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by
Bakx is sustained.
The rejection of claims 28-31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
the European Patent Application in view of Bakx is not sustained.
The decision of the examiner is affirmed-in-part.
4The 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, 642 F.2d
413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
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