Appeal No. 2001-1939 Page 9
Application No. 09/072,605
the side walls of the stent. With reference to Figure 2, it can be seen that rounding
edges 34 and 36 will result in contouring them, which clearly will reduce resistance to
motion through a fluid as compared to the perpendicular shape of the corners prior to
such treatment, that is, streamline the flow. Thus, Klein flows the abrasive past the
inner surfaces of the stent for a length of time sufficient to abrade the edges of the inner
stent surface until the edges are rounded and thus are “streamlined”, as is required by
claim 14.
While we have carefully considered the arguments offered by the appellant with
regard to this rejection, they have failed to persuade us that the rejection should not be
sustained, for they are based on a definition of streamlined which is more restrictive
than the common definition. In this regard, we note that the appellant has explained in
the specification that the prior art was “not sufficiently streamlined” (page 3) while his
invention is “extensively streamlined” (page 6), which lends credence to our position
that “streamlined” is a broad term that includes rounding the edges.
The Section 102 rejection of claim 14 is sustained, as is the like rejection of
dependent claims 19 and 21, the separate patentability of which were not argued.
The patentability of claim 18 has been argued. Claim 18 adds to claim 14 the
requirement that the fluid abrasive media “contains particles having a size substantially
between 0.008 and 0.0003 inches.” Klein discloses that “[t]ypically, abrasive particle
size ranges from 0.005 mm to 1.5 mm” (column 9, lines 10 and 11), which is between
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