Appeal No. 2005-0980 12
Application No. 09/818,228
REJECTION BASED ON LETHI AND SPOFFORD
As evidence of obviousness of the subject matter defined by claims 7 and 19 under
Section 103(a), the examiner relies on the combined disclosures of Lethi and Spofford.
See the Answer page 9. The disclosure of Lethi is discussed above. As acknowledged by
the examiner (Answer, page 9-10), Lethi does not mention that its nasal catheter has a
hydrophilic coating.
To remedy this deficiency, the examiner relies on the disclosure of Spofford. See
the Answer, page 9. The examiner finds (Id.) that Spofford teaches that a hydrophilic
coating in a catheter limits adhesion and subsequent build-up of mucous-type materials
which could restrict the flow of oxygen through the catether. See also Spofford, column 4,
lines 15-22. The appellant does not dispute this finding. See the Brief, pages 11-12.
Moreover, the appellant acknowledges at page 4 of the specification that it was well known
at the time of the invention that “mucus would tend to obstruct the [nasal] catheter.”
Given the above teachings, we concur with the examiner that one of ordinary skill
in the art would have been led to employ the hydrophilic coating described in Spofford in
the nasal catheter of the type described in Lethi, motivated by a reasonable expectation of
preventing or minimizing the formation of mucus in the nasal catheter.
Thus, notwithstanding the appellant’s arguments to the contrary, we determine that
the preponderance of evidence weighs most heavily in favor of obviousness of the subject
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