Appeal 2006-3326
Application 09/881,909
the prior art evidence and in accord with current patent jurisprudence.
Accordingly, we will sustain the Examiner's rejections for the reasons set
forth in the Answer, which we incorporate herein, and we add the following
for emphasis only.
We consider first the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-5, 7-10, 12-34,
36, 37, and 39-55 under § 102/§ 103 over Wisniewski. There is no dispute
that Wisniewski, like Appellants, discloses a thermal transfer system
comprising the presently claimed container for receiving a medium, a
structure position in the container that segments the container into a plurality
of compartments and which has a distal end that extends toward the interior
of the container, wherein heat is transferred from the distal end of the
structure toward the interior wall of the container in response to the interior
wall being actively cooled. The dispositive issue on appeal is whether the
distal end of the structure within the container is in close proximity to the
interior surface of the container such that heat is transferred from the distal
end through a thermal transfer bridge located between the distal end and the
interior wall of the container. It is Appellants' principal contention that the
thermal transfer system of Wisniewski does not result in the formation of a
thermal transfer bridge between the structure and the interior wall of the
container. On the other hand, the Examiner has placed on the record a
detailed analysis of the Wisniewski system which purportedly demonstrates
that the formation of the claimed thermal transfer bridge is inherent in the
Wisniewski system. Appellants rely upon two declarations of Wisniewski,
who is one of the authors of the Wisniewski prior art article, as well as one
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