Appeal No. 2001-2495
Application No. 09/110,876
In addition, appellant has provided scant analysis of the
specification data and has not established on this record that
the data would have been considered truly unexpected by one of
ordinary skill in the art. In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091,
1099, 231 USPQ 375, 381 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Concerning the examiner’s rejection of claims 5, 9 and 10
over JP ‘604 in view of Boileau, we concur with the examiner
that, since both JP ‘604 and Boileau are directed to pneumatic
tires having tread patterns for wintery, icy-snowy roads, it
would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to
modify the tread pattern of JP ‘604 such that the wall surface of
each block on a transverse groove side has a stepped
configuration in accordance with Boileau. As explained by the
examiner, “Boileau teaches that the variation in width of the
wall surfaces (i.e. the stepped configuration) provides the
relief elements with a relatively wide base so that they are less
fragile and so that as the tire wears it can be used as a summer
tire (can be driven comfortably in other than winter conditions
especially as wear of the tire increases). See column 1 of
Boileau.” (page 12 of answer, last two sentences). As for
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