Appeal No. 1999-2781
Application No. 08/656,299
Regarding the examiner's rejection of claims 14 and 16
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kell (Fig.
11), Fritsche, or Fertier in view of Ellis, and the rejection
of claims 14, 16 and 29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Kell (Fig. 11), Fritsche, or Fertier and
Willey as applied to claims 1 and 25 above, and further in
view of Ellis, it is the examiner's position (answer, page 4)
that Ellis shows a dissipating unit and that it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide
Kell (Fig. 11), Fritsche, or Fertier, or those patents as
modified by Willey, with such a unit for cushioning shock
loads. Our first problem here is that the examiner has not
identified any component or components in Ellis which he
considers to be the "dissipating unit," and has also not
provided any clear rationale as to why one of ordinary skill
in the art would have been led to modify the seat belt reels
of Kell and Fritsche, or the safety elevator of Fertier, or
those references as further modified by Willey, to include any
such "dissipating unit." Moreover, even if the applied prior
art were to be modified to include a dissipating unit, we
remain of the view that the resulting structure would not be
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