Appeal No. 1998-0801
Application No. 08/557,979
0PINION
Having carefully reviewed the obviousness issue raised in
this appeal in light of the record before us, we have come to
the conclusion that the examiner's rejection of the appealed
claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103 will not be sustained. Our
reasoning in support of this determination follows.
Even if we were to agree with the examiner that it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
provide the apparatus of Bernhardt with a weight fixed at the
bottom thereof to provide a weighted system for use in the
well shaft (10), we see nothing in the applied references
which addresses the additional specific structural features of
the claimed subject matter as set forth in claim 11, or in
claims 13 through 16 which depend therefrom. Like appellants,
we find the examiner's reliance on "design consideration" to
provide for the many structural differences between the
apparatus of Bernhardt and that defined in the claims on
appeal to be entirely untenable, fraught with speculation and
conjecture, and completely without any evidential support.
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