Appeal No. 2004-2173
Application No. 09/970353
appeal, and "means for thermally protecting the communication
lines" as required in claim 26, are necessarily readable on the
insulation shields (8, 9) in Bahder. It would appear that the
examiner's conclusion in that regard is based on speculation and
conjecture, since Bahder provides no indication of the materials
of construction of the insulation shields (8) and (9).
Since it is our determination that the teachings and
suggestions to be fairly derived from a collective consideration
of the patents to Bahder and Crawley would not have made the
subject matter as a whole of independent claims 1, 6, and 26 on
appeal obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of
appellants' invention, we must refuse to sustain the examiner's
rejection of those claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). It follows
that the examiner's rejection of dependent claims 2, 5, 7 through
14, 19 through 21 and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) will also not
be sustained.
Regarding the examiner's further rejections of dependent
claims 3, 4, 22, 24 and 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), we have
reviewed the additional references to Dery and Morrisette relied
upon in these rejections, but find nothing therein which
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