Appeal No. 2001-1504
Application 08/618,263
enhanced operation of the wedges, pivot points, and
jaws of the self-adjusting locking tool of the
present invention, would not have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the tool art at the time
the present invention was made [Wooster declaration,
paragraphs 12 through 14].
The foregoing makes clear that the noted functional or
operational advantages result from allegedly critical pivot
point clearances or tolerances, not from the laminated jaw
construction itself. Claim 16, however, does not recite such
pivot point clearances or tolerances, and thus is not 1
commensurate with the asserted advantages. Emmett establishes
that laminated jaw constructions are conventional expedients,
and Wooster’s statement that such a construction “increases
the strength of the tool and reduces the cost of production”
(paragraph 13) buttresses the examiner’s conclusion that it
would have been obvious to form Lance’s jaws of laminated
construction for the purposes of strength and stability. The
law does not require that references be combined for the
reasons contemplated by the inventor as long as some
1Given the lack of any mention of these pivot point
clearances or tolerances in the appellant’s disclosure, it
would seem that claim 16 could not recite same without raising
35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, issues.
9
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007