Appeal 2007-2557
Application 10/094,866
pending claims in the above-referenced application.1 We have jurisdiction
to decide this case pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
According to the Specification, there is need in the art “to provide a
stent which can be articulated to facilitate the delivery of a stent through the
often tortuous pathway provided by coronary arteries to a desired final
location within the patient.” (Spec. at 4). The description continues, “the
stent should have the ability to ‘snake’ around complex curves and tight
curves encountered in the circulatory system, especially those associated
with the coronary system which supplies critical blood flow to the heart.”
Id. Further desired is the “avoidance of any stent structure, which tend to
snag or catch on the interior of the various blood vessels.” Id. Finally, “the
control of end-to-end length changes upon expansion is a desirable feature in
stents.” Id. at 5.
In the preferred embodiments, the expandable stent . . .
is expandable by enlarging an expandable balloon positioned
within the stent. The preferred stent includes a plurality of
modules, each of the modules being radially interconnected
to form a ring configured to be expandably interconnected
and being interconnected to each other in series by respective
interconnection bridges. Each ring including a continuous
strand of a material, the continuous strand of material being
interconnected end to end so as to generally encompass a
radial space with the ring. The strand of material being
configured to include a repeating series of interconnected
1 A decision affirming the rejection of all the claims in a related appeal
2007-0383 (Serial No. 10/902,318) was mailed on March 30, 2007. The
decision in that appeal is hereafter referred to as “Das ‘318”).
2
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