Appeal No. 98-3306
Application 08/866,014
ball supporting posts (b) of Grave to be in the form of flat,
planar metal strips or panels as seen in Figure 5 of Holland,
we fail to see any teaching, suggestion or incentive in the
applied references that would have further motivated such an
artisan to shape and arrange the planar strips or panels of
the golf ball holder of Grave (as modified) so as to provide
alphabetic characters arranged to depict the alphabetic
acronym initials of a particular institution, as required in
appellants’ claims on appeal. The examiner’s position
(answer, pages 4-5) that
“It would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made
to have shaped and arranged the panels in such a
manner in order to increase the aesthetic appearance
of the rack. Moreover, it would have been obvious
as a matter of design choice to have shaped the
planar panels in the shapes mentioned above (e.g.,
two alphabetic characters), since the applicant has
not disclosed that having this feature solves any
stated problems or is for any particular purpose and
it appears that the planar panels would perform
equally well with shapes other than that claimed by
the appellant”
is, in our opinion, based on impermissible hindsight gained
only from appellants’ disclosure.
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