Appeal No. 2000-0873
Application No. 08/975,983
the plurality of paints of the mural. As aptly pointed out by
appellant on page 19 of the brief, what the examiner seems to
be saying is that it would have been obvious to “figure out”
the amounts needed from the downsized model of the final
mural. However, like appellant, we
simply do not agree with this conclusion. From our
perspective, the combined teachings of the applied references
do not, either expressly or implicitly, suggest specifying the
amounts (i.e., total quantities) needed for each of the
plurality of paints of the mural. Thus, the examiner’s second
theory of obviousness also is not well taken.
Third, the examiner appears to be of the view (see, for
example, final rejection, page 12) that specifying the amounts
of paint needed for each of the paints of the mural has not
been disclosed by appellant as being a critical or essential
feature of the invention, and that accordingly this feature
cannot be relied upon to patentably distinguish over the prior
art. However, this theory fails at the outset because
criticality is not a requirement of patentability. See W. L.
11
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