Appeal No. 2001-2004 Page 6
Application No. 08/956,715
blood (column 17, lines 18-26). The examiner also notes that claim 5 recites that in the
treated surface catheter, stent or cannulae of claim 4 (which depends from claim 1
through claims 2 and 3), “said interface layer has a surface energy in the range of 20 to
30 dynes per centimeter.” Notwithstanding these passages, our analysis of the Bosley
reference leads us to agree with the appellants that the examiner’s rejection is not well-
founded. Our reasoning follows.
The objective of the Bosley invention is to enhance the acoustic properties of an
implanted medical device so that it can better be imaged during insertion and
placement. A number of embodiments are disclosed, however, in only two of them is
silver used as the outer layer, as is required by independent claim 1. The examiner has
focused on the embodiment shown in Figure 20, which is explained in conjunction with
Figure 19 in columns 16 and 17. Looking first to Figure 19, elongated member 1901 is
comprised of a first base material 1904 of polyurethane or silicone rubber which has an
outer surface 1903 that has been bombarded with argon ions under circumstances
which smooth the surface and achieve a coefficient of friction of 0.124 for polyurethane
and 0.125 for silicone rubber (column 17, line 14). This treatment “also results in a
surface energy of 20 to 30 dynes per centimeter,” which “has been found to be resistant
to the formation of blood thrombus on the surface of the device” (column 17, lines 18-
23). The further comment is made that any base material from the previously described
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