Appeal No. 2000-1948 Page 11
Application No. 08/751,087
forward and rearward motion of the sheath with respect to the
body of the handle; and (2) a detent carried by the handle to
prevent continuous forward-rearward movement of the movable
portion of the handle from the implant capture position to the
implant release position.
With regard to these differences, the examiner determined
(final rejection, p. 2) that it would have been obvious to one
having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention
to place the control handle of Williams on any of the three
base references (i.e., Lukic, Braunschweiler and Robinson), as
simply a matter of an obvious design choice as to this type of
means to actuate the release of the stent.
In the briefs before us in this appeal, the appellants do
not contest the obviousness of combining Williams' control
handle with the device of either Lukic, Braunschweiler or
Robinson; however, the appellants do argue that the resulting
structure does not arrive at the subject matter of claim 2. We
agree. In that regard, it is our determination that the
combined teachings of the applied prior art would not have
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