Appeal No. 2002-0396
Application No. 08/331,280
THE REJECTIONS
The claims stand rejected as follows: claims 1 and 4-8 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Pray, and claims 9 and 11-18
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Pray in view of Sepetka.
OPINION
We reverse the aforementioned rejections. We need to
address only the independent claims, i.e., claims 1, 9 and 11.
Rejection of claim 1
The appellants concede that if Pray is available as a
reference under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e), it anticipates the microtube
claimed in the appellants’ claim 1 (reply brief, page 1). The
appellants state that the appellants and the examiner appear to
be in agreement that, with respect to the appellants’ claim 1,
Pray has an effective filing date of April 9, 1993, which is the
first filing date of a Pray application containing a disclosure
of a braid layer having fewer picks per inch at the proximal end
than at the distal end (brief, page 9). The appellants argue
that the second supplemental declaration under 37 CFR § 1.131
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