Appeal No. 2001-1472
Application 08/772,878
sustain the examiner’s rejection of claim 22, or claims 23
through 29 which depend therefrom, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Brumbach in view of Manna, Wuchinich, and
Kühne.
We next consider the examiner’s alternative rejection of
claims 22 through 29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Manna in view of Wuchinich and Kühne. In this
instance, the examiner has made a determination that the
ultrasonic probe of Manna corresponds to that defined in
appellant’s claims on appeal, except that Manna does not teach an
internal constriction in the channel of the probe or a tip formed
using a metal insert. In the examiner’s view (final rejection,
page 4), these differences between Manna and the claimed subject
matter on appeal are provided and rendered obvious by the
teachings of Wuchinich and Kühne. More particularly, the
examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of appellant’s invention
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