Appeal 2007-1585
Application 10/383,268
Ground of Rejection
Claims 25-28, and 30-35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as
obvious in view of Fogarty.
We affirm.
DISCUSSION
Claims 25-28 and 34
The Examiner contends that Fogarty teaches each of the three stent
grafts claimed, but “that the claim language is not fully met in that the
sealing end of graft module (92) (left side in figure 4) would have to be
coupled to the left side of the graft module (94) in order to read on the claim
language.” (Answer 3.)
However, the Examiner also finds that
Fogarty teaches that it was contemplated to vary the
diameters at the end or use a constant diameter section in the
system generally by the teachings associated with Figure 4. For
example, Fogarty teaches that the “length, cross-section, axial
bend angle, axial flexibility, resilient spring force . . . and the
like” can be varied to offer a variety of prosthetic character-
istics; see column 10, lines 52-56. Furthermore, barbs or
windings can be obviously utilized to attach the sections
together as was clearly contemplated by Fogarty; see Figures
3B to 3D and column 10, lines 16-33. The barbs or windings
would make the outer diameter of module (92) larger than the
rest of the constant diameter section because of the presence of
the barbs or windings.
On page 18, lines 7-17 of the specification, Appellant
states that the order of the stent-grafts could be changed or the
ends of the grafts could be reversed depending upon the
situation. Since it is clear that there was no criticality to the
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