Appeal No. 97-2713
Application 08/373,069
In the first place, the Laukien patent falls squarely
within appellant’s field of endeavor, namely watercraft. This
reference, therefore, is properly taken into account in
evaluating the patentability of the claimed subject matter
under § 103. See Clay, 966 F.2d at 658, 23 USPQ2d at 1060.
Furthermore, contrary to appellant’s additional arguments
on page 14 of the brief, Laukien teaches in column 6, lines
12-17, that the ballast tanks are used to control buoyancy
even under conditions in which the supporting hulls are not
fully submerged, but are merely largely submerged to approach
a condition similar to that contemplated by Barkley. One of
ordinary skill in the art certainly would have recognized from
the cited prior art that ballast tanks are useful for
controlling the buoyancy of hulls in a semi-submerged state as
well as a fully submerged state. Also, the mere fact that
Barkley’s watercraft may be regarded as being fairly stable
does not mean that an additional advantage may not be derived
from the use of a buoyancy-controlling ballast system.
For the foregoing reasons, we will sustain the § 103
14
Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007