Appeal 2007-2378
Application 10/837,098
1 on the frontwardly facing outer surface (fig. 1) as required by the Appellants’
2 claims 4, 5 and 14-16.
3 Claim 8
4 The Appellants argue that “it would not have been clear to one of skill in the
5 art that a housing having a hole running down its center could be used as a bursting
6 mole, which is solid at its front end as taught by Carter” (Reply Br. 8). The
7 Appellants do not point out, and we do not find, where Carter discloses that a
8 bursting mole must have a solid front end. One of ordinary skill in the art,
9 therefore, would have had a reasonable expectation of success, in view of the
10 applied prior art, in using Brewis’s towing head as a pipe bursting/towing head.
11 See In re O’Farrell, 853 F.2d 894, 904, 7 USPQ2d 1673, 1681 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
12 (“For obviousness under § 103, all that is required is a reasonable expectation of
13 success.”).
14 For the above reasons we are not convinced of reversible error in the
15 rejection over Brewis in view of Carter.
8
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