Appeal No. 2002-0573
Application 09/150,422
rejection, and to appellant’s brief (Paper No. 20, filed June 6,
2001) for the arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given
careful consideration to appellant’s specification and claims, to
the applied prior art references, and to the respective positions
articulated by appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we have made the determination which follows.
Like appellant, we are of the opinion that the examiner has
taken appellant’s disclosure and claims as a blueprint and used
them to seek out and assemble disparate elements from the prior
art in an effort to arrive at appellant’s claimed subject matter.
Thus, the examiner’s position in this appeal represents a clear
case of impermissible hindsight reconstruction of the claimed
invention based on appellant’s own teachings. In that regard, we
note, as our court of review indicated in In re Fritch, 972 F.2d
1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783 (Fed. Cir. 1992), that it is
impermissible to use the claimed invention as an instruction
manual or "template" in attempting to piece together isolated
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