Appeal No. 2002-0933
Application No. 09/325,944
relied upon by the examiner, it follows that we will not sustain
the examiner's rejection of dependent claim 8 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).
As for the examiner's rejection of claims 10 through 13
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Rague alone, we find the
examiner's reasoning to be fraught with speculation and
conjecture, and to be based entirely on hindsight derived from
appellant's own disclosure. Moreover, as should be apparent from
our discussion supra, we share appellant's view that Rague has no
teaching or suggestion of a "presence sensing mechanism" which
provides an indication of a substantially complete mating of the
first and second mating surface, as required in independent claim
9, from which claims 10 through 13 either directly or indirectly
depend. Thus, we will not sustain the examiner's rejection of
claims 10 through 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
To summarize our decision, we note that a) the examiner's
Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007