Appeal No. 2001-1343
Application No. 08/965,818
and efficiency aspects of the claimed system, the Thompson
patent shows that these advantages were already known in the
art. In this regard, Thompson appears to refute the statement
on page 2 in the press release that “[n]o motor, air or
hydraulic[,] had ever been successfully combined with any
hydraulic torque wrench until now.”
The Clark declarations suffer the same flaw to the extent
that they too laud the general purpose speed and efficiency
benefits of the claimed system. These declarations also
mention a number of other purported advantages, such as a
design which allows use in a confined space, a motor on top of
a ratchet, the elimination of a lot of hose cluster, and the
use of a suspension apparatus. The appealed claims, however,
do not reflect these features. Finally, the Clark
declarations lack any substantiation for the assertions
therein of copying and solution to a long felt need in the
art.
Thus, the appellants’ 37 CFR § 1.132 declarations carry
little weight as evidence of non-obviousness with respect to
the subject matter recited in representative claim 77. To the
extent that the declarations do constitute such evidence, they
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