Appeal No. 2000-1995
Application No. 08/850,277
pressure pillow 24 having an angled branch port 30 for a
saline line 32, tubing 26, roller pump tubing 34, a connector
having an angled branch port for a heparin line 38, tubing 36
and a connector 14 for connecting the set to a dialyzer, these
components being arranged as shown in Figure 1.
It is not disputed that the Utterberg blood flow set
responds to all of the limitations in independent claims 1, 5,
10, 14, 18 and 19 except for those requiring at least one of
the pump tubing/segment connectors to connect to a branch line
in “longitudinal” (claims 1, 5, 14 and 18) or “substantially
parallel” (claims 10 and 19) relation to the associated
portion of the blood flow tubing/conduit. As indicated 3
above, the corresponding relation in the Utterberg blood flow
set is angled (perpendicular as shown in the drawings).
Reed discloses a bifurcated tubing connector for an
extracorporeal blood handling system, such as a hemodialysis
system, wherein it is necessary to join two incoming blood
streams into a single outgoing stream. Reed teaches that
3The underlying specification (see, for example, pages 5
and 9) uses the terms “parallel” and “longitudinal”
interchangeably to describe the relation between the branch
lines and the associated blood flow tubing/conduits.
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007