Appeal No. 2001-1712
Application No. 09/456,968
have associated therewith a super-absorbent material.” (Column
12, lines 3-6.)
The examiner held (final rejection, page 4): “It would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill to have modified the
material (32) of Nichols as taught by Newell in order to enhance
fluid take-up and retention capacity in wet mopping applications
and also to provide an embodiment which possessed a single-use
capability...” As pointed out by the appellants (appeal brief,
page 3), however, Newell teaches the use of superabsorbent
materials only in the context of a disposable, single-use string
mop head, whereas Nichols relates to a washable and reusable mop
head. While Newell might have led one of ordinary skill in the
art to substitute the entire mop head of Nichols with the string
mop head of Newell, the examiner has not identified any evidence
to establish that one of ordinary skill in the art would have
been led to selectively omit the web elements of Newell and add
only the superabsorbent material into Nichols’s washable
cleaning pad.
We therefore hold that the examiner has engaged in
impermissible hindsight reconstruction using the appellants’ own
specification as a blueprint to piece together bits from Nichols
and Newell. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780,
1784 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Interconnect Planning Corp. v. Feil, 774
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