Appeal No. 2000-1782
Application No. 08/933,639
§ 112, second paragraph, rejection of claims 1 through 4, 7
and 18.
II. The 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1 through 20 as
being unpatentable over Joyner in view of Saigne and Bright
Joyner, the examiner’s primary reference, discloses an
infant nursing bottle designed to prevent the buildup of
negative pressure within the bottle during use. To this end,
the bottle 10 includes a generally cylindrical, open-ended,
plastic body 11, a nipple 12, a threaded ring 13 holding the
nipple over the top of the body, a disk-shaped microporous
membrane 14, a pair of protective plastic grids 18 and 19
sandwiching the membrane, and a threaded ring 16 holding the
membrane and grids over the bottom 15 of the body. The
microporous membrane, which preferably is made of a woven,
teflon-based material (e.g., GORTEX®), contains more than one
billion pores per square inch and permits the passage of air,
but not liquid, under normal pressures.
As conceded by the examiner (see page 4 in the answer),
Joyner does not respond to the limitation in independent claim
1 requiring the vent to be made from a sintered macroporous
substrate, or the corresponding limitations in independent
5
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