Appeal No. 2001-2392 Page 4
Application No. 09/114,962
motivation must stem from some teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a
whole or from the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and not
from the appellant's disclosure. See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837
F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
The Rejection Of Claims 1, 6, 10, 12, 28 and 29
Claim 1 is directed to a vehicle including a side impact airbag system. It recites a
system housing arranged on the side of passenger compartment, an airbag in the system
housing, inflator means at least partially in the interior housing, and a crash sensor for
initiating inflation of the airbag, with the sensor comprising “a sensor housing arranged
within said system housing” (emphasis added) and a sensing mass in the sensor housing
to move relative to the sensor in response to accelerations from a crash into the side of the
vehicle. Claim 1 stands rejected as being unpatentable over Haviland in view of Breed.
Our understanding of the examiner’s position is that Haviland discloses a side airbag
system but does not recite the details of the location of the sensor, that Breed teaches
locating the sensor housing and sensor within the system housing, and that it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Haviland by including the airbag
sensor system of Breed in the system housing along the sides of the vehicle. The
appellant argues that Breed teaches that the sensor be located outside of the crush zone,
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