Appeal No. 2000-1555
Application No. 08/922,929
stiff and flexible enough that may go around the wrist when not
in use and hold the speaker and the microphone in their proper
position during operation as a telephone. In evaluating the
combination of the prior art, we are guided by the court’s
decision in Para-Ordnance Mfg. Inc. v. SGS Importers Int’l Inc.,
73 F.3d 1085, 1088-89, 37 USPQ2d 1237, 1239-40 (Fed. Cir. 1995),
that for the determination of obviousness, the court must answer
whether one of ordinary skill in the art who sets out to solve
the problem and who had before him in his workshop the prior art,
would have been reasonably expected to use the solution that is
claimed by the Appellants. Based on the court’s guidance, we
disagree with the Examiner (answer, page 8) that one of ordinary
skill in the art would have followed the teachings of Blonder and
biased the wristband of Olsen to a straighter configuration “to
prevent slippage.” In fact, Blonder has nothing to do with
preventing slippage. Blonder merely provides speaker openings at
the side surfaces of the end portion of top layer 12 such that
the user will be able to hear the incoming sounds even if the
user’s arm drops and the end portion slips down the user’s face
and blocks the speaker openings on the flat surface of the end
portion. Olsen does not face similar problems since the user
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