Appeal No. 2001-2543
Application No. 09/225,892
examiner has not identified any difference between the claimed
subject matter and the applied prior art and has made no
obviousness statement with regard to any modification of the
scuba tank weight strap seen in the Finnern patent. After a
careful assessment of appellants' independent claims 1 and 21 and
of the Finnern reference, we must agree with appellants' position
as set forth in the brief (pages 7-12) and in the reply brief,
that the scuba tank weight strap of Finnern is expressly
positioned and secured to the cylinder or tank (12) therein so as
to be easily and rapidly jettisoned by the diver in the event of
an emergency situation and is thus the exact opposite of
appellants' claimed subject matter. Moreover, we share
appellants' view that, contrary to the assertions of the
examiner, the weights (50) of Finnern are not positioned on the
cylinder (12) so as to allow the weight members to rotate the
diver to ensure heads up surface positioning if the diver becomes
incapacitated. In that regard, we observe that appellants
specifically mentioned the Finnern patent on page 7 of their
specification, noting that the weights shown therein are
positioned off center and would thus most likely reenforce the
side righting moments acting on the diver and dispose the diver
so that the diver's airways are under water. On page 7 of their
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