Appeal 2007-2026
Application 10/131,772
at col. 1, ll. 35-40). Fischell ‘971 discloses that while the focus of the
disclosure is on placing the stent into arteries, the stent “could also be
applied to other types of vessels of the human body such as bronchial tubes
in the lung or the bile duct in the liver” (id. at col. 4, ll. 32-36).
Savin discloses a stent delivery method in which the “[b]alloon
catheter . . . may be either non-tapered in the stent-engaging region . . . , or
tapered or stepped, as desired. This system may be used to deliver stents to,
for example, coronary arteries, peripheral arteries (e.g., popliteal artery) and
visceral arteries, veins, and to the biliary tree, the urinary tract, and the
gastro-intestinal tract” (Savin, col. 6, ll. 27-34). As discussed above, Savin
states that “[a]ny kind of stent may be delivered by this system, including
plastically deformable or elastically deformable stents” (id. at col. 5, ll. 49-
51).
Thus, Fischell ‘971 discloses that the two-cell-type stent can be
suitably deployed to different vessels in the body, and Savin discloses that
its delivery system can be used to deploy stents to a wide variety of vessels.
Given the broad applicability of Savin’s delivery system to “any kind of
stent” (Savin, col. 5, ll. 49-51), we agree with the Examiner that one of
ordinary skill would have reasonably concluded that Savin’s delivery
methods were suitable for deploying the Fischell ‘971 stent. Therefore, even
assuming for argument’s sake that one of ordinary skill would have
considered the Fischell ‘971 stent unsuitable for use as a filter, one of
ordinary skill would still have considered it obvious to use Savin’s tapered
balloon delivery methods to deploy the Fischell ‘971 stent into a tapered
vessel.
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