Appeal No. 2003-0079 Page 5
Application No. 09/532,114
"secondary" fuel lines is an intended use and should be given no consideration from the
standpoint of the patentability of the claimed subject matter. Proceeding on this basis,
the examiner has found that all of the subject matter recited in independent claim 6 is
disclosed by Ikeda, except for delivering a liquid fuel downstream of the throttle by an
injector and a gaseous fuel directly into the combustion engine. The examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify
the Ikeda system by replacing the carburetor in view of Takeda, and to move Ikeda's
gaseous fuel inlet from a location in the intake conduit upstream of the engine to a
position adjacent to the engine inlet valve. The appellants have taken issue with the
examiner's findings on a number of grounds, and we find ourselves generally in
agreement with the positions they have expressed regarding the rejection of claim 6 on
pages 5-7 of the Brief and on pages 2 and 3 of the Reply Brief. This being the case, we
will not sustain the rejection
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would
have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller, 642
F.2d 413, 425,208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner to provide a reason why one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to
combine reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp,
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007