Appeal No. 2001-2338
Application 08/996,360
“substantially non-movable” when it is not subjected to any
outside force, or when it is “placed [sic, on] a grassy surface,”
are clearly contrived and wholly untenable.
As for the examiner’s contention that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the
cushioning apparatus (12, 14) of Zapf’s upholstered office chair
with exposed readable indicia comprising a team name or logo, we
agree with appellant’s argument as set forth in the brief (pages
17-18) and reply brief (pages 7-8) that there is absolutely no
teaching, suggestion, or incentive in the applied references for
applying any form of written indicia to the armrest cushions of
the office chair seen in Zapf. Moreover, like appellant, given
the incomplete sentence on page 9 of the examiner’s answer, it
appears that even the examiner was unable to articulate any
motivation for such a combination of the applied patents.
Also of concern here is the examiner’s total lack of any
specific treatment of the method claims on appeal (i.e., claims
36-43) and the examiner’s clearly erroneous assertions (answer,
page 8) that the method claims are “somewhat irrelevant” and that
a § 103 rejection of the apparatus claims “basically covers a
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