Appeal No. 2004-0470
Application No. 09/673,771
reinforcing fibres in a plastics material matrix as recited in
appealed claim 1. The examiner’s conjecture that Ball’s housing
members would benefit from the additional strength afforded by
this modification has no basis in the fair teachings of these
references. The only suggestion for combining the disparate
disclosures of references respectively directed to an article for
thermally insulating a well site valve (Ball) and shells designed
to withstand high hydrostatic pressures (Elliott) in the manner
proposed by the examiner stems from hindsight knowledge
impermissibly derived from the appellants’ disclosure.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) rejection of independent claim 1, and dependent claims
2, 3, 6 through 8, 10, 14, 15 and 19 through 21, as being
unpatentable over Ball in view of Elliott.
As the examiner’s additional application of Bastone,
Schneider, Augur, Burdick and Gablin does not cure the above
noted shortcomings of the Ball and Elliott combination relative
to the subject matter recited in independent claim 1, we also
shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of
dependent claims 4 and 5 as being unpatentable over Ball in view
of Elliott and Bastone, the standing 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection
of dependent claims 9, 16 and 17 as being unpatentable over Ball
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