Appeal No. 1999-0253
Application No. 08/636,206
1999). The examiner has not identified any convincing, clear
evidence of a reason, teaching or motivation to adapt the
catheter deployment technique of MacGregor to a method of
forming the covered stent of Gianturco. It is noted that the
deployment method of MacGregor requires release of the stent
from the catheter while the claims on appeal require
“chemically bonding at least the portion of the stent and the
tube together.” See claim 15 on appeal and MacGregor, col. 2,
ll. 1-4. It is also noted that the examiner has not
identified any portion of Gianturco that discloses or suggests
that the sleeve or tube is “preformed.” The examiner’s own
reference to Kaster discloses formation of the sleeve or
covering tube by a method other than insertion of the stent
into a preformed tube, i.e., by deposition of liquid plastic
material on the stent (col. 4, ll. 1-8; col. 7, ll. 12-25).
Accordingly, we determine that the examiner has not identified
any reason, teaching, or motivation from the references
themselves, the nature of any known problem, or the knowledge
of the prior art, that would support the proposed combination
of references. Kaster, as discussed above, and Simon have
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