Appeal No. 2004-1137
Application No. 09/734506
"partial volume" of the overall withdrawn fluid to flow into the
storage container (10).
Since Hansen clearly teaches a sampler and method like that
broadly defined in claim 17 on appeal, the examiner's rejection
of claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) will be sustained. As for
claim 20, also rejected by the examiner under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
based on Hansen, in light of appellant's grouping of claims set
forth on page 10 of the brief, it is our determination that claim
20 will fall with independent claim 17, from which it depends.
The examiner has also nominally rejected claims 17 and 20
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Hansen. However,
notwithstanding that we again find no express obviousness
analysis made by the examiner, we will sustain this rejection
also, since, as we noted earlier, anticipation or lack of novelty
is the ultimate or epitome of obviousness.
The last of the examiner's rejections for our review is that
of claims 28, 29, 31 and 32 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as obvious over Gillard. We have discussed the Gillard patent
1919
Page: Previous 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007