Appeal No. 2000-1638
Application No. 08/829,699
4). Thus, it is not apparent to us why one of ordinary skill
in the art, in the absence of appellant's disclosure, would
have been motivated to modify the Yamamoto pipe in an attempt
to improve condensation performance, a mode in which
Yamamoto's pipe is not recognized in the art as being
deficient, by adding a feature which both Yamamoto and Asaumi
appear to recognize would be deleterious to the evaporation
performance of the Yamamoto pipe.
In light of the above, it is our opinion that the prior
art evidence relied upon by the examiner does not justify a
conclusion that the subject matter of claim 1 as a whole would
have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a
person having ordinary skill in the art. Accordingly, we
cannot sustain the examiner's rejection of claim 1, or claims
3, 6-22 and 24-30 which depend from claim 1, as being
unpatentable over Yamamoto in view of Asaumi.
With regard to rejection (2), the deficiency noted above
finds no cure in the teachings of Schmidt. Therefore, we
shall also not sustain the examiner's rejection of claim 23,
which depends from claim 1, as being unpatentable over
Yamamoto in view of Asaumi and Schmidt.
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