Appeal No. 2000-1359 Page 5
Application No. 08/351,613
mouth of the exhaust lumen by conversion of kinetic energy to potential energy (i.e.,
pressure)” (emphasis added). No additional explanation is provided in the specification,
other than the statement that high pressure is involved.
Plechinger discloses a device for accomplishing the same task as the appellants’
invention (column 3, lines 4-6). As is best shown in Figure 2, it comprises a first
passage 12 terminating at its distal end in an orifice 14 through which pressurized fluid
flows under pressure through a space 130. The fluid jet is directed into the inlet 16 of a
second passage 18 that carries the fluid and entrained material toward its proximal end.
According to Plechinger “[t]he impulse of the irrigating fluid jet, which leaves the orifice
14 and flows into the inlet 16 . . . is transferred by friction and turbulence . . . partly to
the surrounding medium within the distance 130 and brings about the aspiration of a
suction flow volume . . . [which is] used to remove material from the vessel 8" (column
3, lines 56-63). Plechinger continues that “[t]he function of the irrigating catheter is to
form a jet-suction device” (column 4, lines 48 and 49), and this action “entrains material
from its surroundings and produces a negative pressure in the region of distance 130"
(column 4, lines 62-64).
Absent convincing evidence to the contrary, which has not been brought to our
attention, we do not agree that there is a difference between the effect created by the
Plechinger jet in the open space 130 between orifice 14 and inlet 16 and that created
by the appellants’ invention. It seems to us that the appellants have merely applied a
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