Appeal No. 96-4039
Application 08/247,306
would obviously strengthen the connection between them, neither
Mason nor Andersen indicates that any such strengthening is
required, and we do not believe that if strengthening were needed
one of ordinary skill would so unnecessarily complicate the
design of the Mason tie (as opposed to, for example, making it
out of stronger or heavier material) unless the horizontal web
would also serve some other, more specific purpose.
We do not consider that one of ordinary skill in the
art would find any suggestion or motivation in Andersen for
providing Mason’s tie with the claimed vane shelves. As
discussed above, in the Andersen device two perpendicular webs
are provided between the parallel plates in order to form four
pockets into which the corners of four plywood panels can fit.
By contrast, in the Mason apparatus the corners of the foam
panels 14 are not located between the plates, but rather the webs
60a or 62a joining the end and inside plates fit into slots 34 in
the foam panels which are located between the end corners of the
panels (col. 3, lines 20 to 23), and it does not appear from
Fig. 1 that webs 60a or 62a are located in the spaces between
panels (i.e., at the corners of four panels). Therefore, even
assuming arguendo that the teachings of Andersen concerning
plywood deck forms would be applicable to Mason’s foam wall
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