Appeal No. 2003-1648 Page 7
Application No. 09/648,359
system to both the driver's air bag and the front passenger's air bag and to have
included spaced sensors measuring deceleration in order to confirm or verify a
collision, it is our determination that these changes do not arrive at the claimed
invention. In that regard, Steffens does not disclose deploying a first stage of the
inflatable restraint if the deceleration warrants a first stage deployment and the weight
of the occupant is above a predetermined threshold4 and deploying a second stage of
the inflatable restraint if the deceleration warrants a second stage of deployment. Thus,
the subject matter of independent claims 1, 11 and 21 is not suggested by the
combined teachings of Steffens, Fayyad and Moroto.
For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the examiner to reject
independent claims 1, 11 and 21, and claims 2, 5 to 7, 9, 13, 14 and 17 dependent
thereon, under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Steffens in view of Fayyad
and Moroto is reversed.
We have also reviewed the Adolph reference additionally applied in the rejection
of claim 16 (dependent on claim 11) and the Foo reference applied in the rejection of
claims 18 to 20 (indirectly or directly dependent on claim 11) but find nothing therein
4 As shown in Figure 3 of Steffens, the first stage of the inflatable restraint (i.e., low control zone
150) is deployed when the crash sensor 90 warrants deployment regardless of the weight of the occupant.
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