Appeal No. 97-1445 Page 8
Application No. 08/202,254
With regard to the rejection of claims 8 through 10, 12
and 20 through 28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Kaplan, the examiner concedes that Kaplan does not
specifically disclose that the blocks are glazed with a
resinous composition, but argues that the application of a
known resinous composition to the wall corner of Kaplan would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art for the
advantage of providing stain resistance, as admitted by the
appellant on page 2 of the specification (answer, pages 4 and
5). As the appellant has not challenged the examiner's
statement, we will accept the examiner's position that the
broad concept of applying a resinous glaze composition to a
masonry building block of the type disclosed by Kaplan is well
known in the art. Consequently, in our opinion, it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to apply
glaze to the outer curvilinear surface of the curvilinear
building block (102) of Kaplan, as this surface is exposed to
the environment, as illustrated in Figure 9.
The appellant does assert that "applying a glaze
composition to a curvilinear surface is difficult, involves
unique problems and would not be obvious to one skilled in the
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