Appeal No. 2001-2354
Application No. 09/186,687
upon a pressure platen in joining heat exchanger tubes, as in
Goetz, the resulting configuration would not be that now claimed
by appellants.
The second rejection
We sustain the rejection of claim 15.
In applying the test for obviousness,3 we conclude that it
would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art,
from a combined assessment of the Goetz and Pawlick references,
to provide a resilient (rubber) grommet between the flat inner
tubes 126 and the header 130 of Goetz (Fig. 8). From our
perspective, the explicit teaching of resilient grommets for use
with oblong tubes 4 having flat sides in Pawlick (Figs. 1 and 2)
would have provided ample motivation to one having ordinary skill
to effect the above modification for obtaining the art recognized
3 The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of
references would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the
art. See In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591, 18 USPQ2d 1089, 1091
(Fed. Cir. 1991) and In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ
871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
6
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