Appeal No. 1998-2637 Page 6
Application No. 08/470,142
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller,
642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie case
of obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner to provide a reason why one of ordinary
skill in the art would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to combine reference
teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973
(Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some
teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellants' disclosure.
See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp.,
837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825
(1988).
(2)
The first of the rejections under Section 103 is that independent claim 57 and
dependent claims 58-60 and 67 are unpatentable over Melker in view of Lee. Claim 57
recites a method comprising a first step of providing a cannula with a sheath at least
partially enclosing a plurality of wires “having leading end portions at a leading end portion
of the sheath,” engaging a surface area of the side wall of a vessel “with at least a portion
of the leading end portion of at least one of the wires and at least a portion of the leading
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