Appeal No. 2006-0180 Παγε 7
Application No. 10/369,343
Accordingly, we also cannot sustain the rejection of claim 2, or claim 6 which depends
from claim 2, as being unpatentable over Morris in view of Tachi.
The examiner's additional application of Jako in rejecting the remaining
dependent claims also provides no cure for the deficiency in the examiner's combination
of Morris in view of Tachi discussed above. It follows that we also cannot sustain the
examiner's rejection of claims 3-5, 7 and 8 as being unpatentable over Morris in view of
Tachi and Jako.
REMAND TO THE EXAMINER
Pursuant to 37 CFR § 41.50(a)(1), we remand this application to the examiner for
further consideration of whether the subject matter of independent claims 1 and 2, and
any of the claims depending therefrom, would have been unpatentable over the
combined teachings of Tachi and Morris. Specifically, we note that Tachi discloses an
overhead support apparatus for an X-ray apparatus for photographing during a medical
treatment, such as surgical operation (column 7, line 11), for example, to confirm a
condition inside the body of a person to be inspected and a state and position of a
medical treatment tool while performing a surgical operation (column 9, line 8). Tachi
teaches that, at least in part as a result of this overhead support arrangement, "the
medical treatment by a doctor is less interfered with and the doctor can easily move and
approach the person to be inspected" (column 3, lines 8-11). It follows that Tachi either
teaches or suggests use of the overhead X-ray support apparatus in an operating room
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007