Appeal No. 2001-0342 Page 13
Application No. 08/677,707
effect of the rim around a drain opening is based on sheer
speculation, not the disclosure of Tash.
Since all the limitations of claim 1 are not found in
Tash for the reasons set forth above, the decision of the
examiner to reject claim 1, and claims 2, 3, 6, 10 and 12
dependent thereon, under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is reversed.
The obviousness rejections
We will not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 2, 4,
5, 7 to 9 and 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 since the combined
teachings of the applied prior art would not have made it
obvious at the time the invention was made to a person of
ordinary skill in the art to have modified Tash's sealing rim
to be capable of allowing air to escape from the interior of
the bellows during compression of the bellows.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, the decision of the examiner to reject
claims 11 and 14 to 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph,
is affirmed; the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1
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