Appeal No. 97-0737
Application 08/538,554
Reference is made to the appellant’s brief (Paper No. 9) and
to the examiner’s answer (Paper No. 10) for the respective
positions of the appellant and the examiner with regard to the
propriety of this rejection.
Flick discloses a device for protecting the hips of baseball
players when they slide into a base. The device includes a belt
1 having buckles 2 and 6 in the front and back, and pads 3
secured to the belt so as to hang down over the hips and thighs
of a user. Each of the pads 3 consists of layers of felt
enclosing an inner pad 4 of hair or sea-moss disposed to overlie
the hip bone. When a player slides into a base, “the first shock
of striking on the hip-bone is taken on the inner pad 4, thus
protecting the point of the hip-bone, and as the player slides
along the several layers of the pad 3 crumple or slip upon each
other, and thus prevent injury” (page 1, lines 66 through 71).
The examiner concedes that the device disclosed by Flick
fails to meet the limitations in independent claims 1 and 12
requiring the claimed hip guard to include (1) resilient pads
having relieved regions sized and configured in correspondence to
the shape of the femoral heads of a user’s hips and (2) rigid
pads engaging the faces of the resilient pads opposite the
relieved regions (see page 4 in the answer). In this regard,
-3-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007