Appeal No. 2000-0322 Page 8
Application No. 08/855,921
any of his furniture cushions. Additionally, none of the
other applied prior art would have made it obvious at the time
the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in
the art to have modified Bubien to reduce the volume of his
padding or any of his furniture cushions when the furniture is
in the container mode shown in Figure 1.
In our view, the only suggestion for modifying Bubien in
the manner proposed by the examiner to include reduced volume
padding stems from hindsight knowledge derived from the
appellants' own disclosure. The use of such hindsight
knowledge to support an obviousness rejection under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 is, of course, impermissible. See, for example, W. L.
Gore and Associates, Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540,
1553, 220 USPQ 303, 312-13 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469
U.S. 851 (1984). It follows that we cannot sustain the
examiner's rejections of claims 1, 3, 6-8, 11-23 and 25.
REMAND
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