Appeal No. 2001-2076
Application No. 09/107,057
OPINION
In reaching our conclusion on the obviousness issue raised
in this appeal, this panel of the board has carefully considered
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appellants' specification and claims,1 the applied teachings,
and the respective viewpoints of appellants and the examiner. As
a consequence of our review, we make the determination which
follows.
This panel of the board cannot sustain the rejection on
appeal.
We fully comprehend the respective teachings of the relevant
Lit, Brusati, and Thornicroft references applied by the examiner,
1 In the last line of claim 37, the recitation "guide
members are" should apparently be --guide member is-- for
consistency with the earlier recitation in the claim of "a guide
member." The matter should be addressed by the examiner.
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2 In our evaluation of the applied prior art, we have
considered all of the disclosure of each document for what it
would have fairly taught one of ordinary skill in the art. See
In re Boe, 355 F.2d 961, 965, 148 USPQ 507, 510 (CCPA 1966).
Additionally, this panel of the board has taken into account not
only the specific teachings, but also the inferences which one
skilled in the art would reasonably have been expected to draw
from the disclosure. See In re Preda, 401 F.2d 825, 826,
159 USPQ 342, 344 (CCPA 1968).
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