Appeal No. 96-3404
Application 08/145,775
understand such a contention since Waters neither depicts nor
describes the sides of the solid tetrahedron 5 as being
“indented.” Viewing FIG. 1C, of Waters the major portion of
the sides or faces are clearly depicted as being “planar.”
Moreover, The Random House Dictionary defines a “tetrahedron” 4
as -- 1. A solid contained by four plane faces; a triangular
pyramid --. Thus, by definition the faces of a tetrahedron
are “planar.”
In view of the foregoing, we will sustain the rejection
of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by
Waters.5
Turning now to the various rejections under 35 U.S.C. §
103, we initially note that in order to establish obviousness
the cited references or prior art need not expressly suggest
making
4 The Random House Dictionary of the English Language,
Second Edition-Unabridged, Random House Inc., New York, N.Y.
5As to the evidence of nonobviousness supplied by the
appellant, we note that such evidence, no matter how striking,
cannot overcome a rejection based on lack of novelty. See,
e.g., In re Malagari, 499 F.2d 1297, 1302, 182 USPQ 549, 553
(CCPA 1974) and In re Wiggins, 488 F.2d 538, 543, 179 USPQ
421, 425 (CCPA 1973).
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