Appeal No. 2004-0136 Page 8
Application No. 09/761,340
added). We interpret this claim to be so broad as not to require that cables be located
on both sides of the rear ankle portion, but merely on either the medial or the lateral
side of the boot. Such is the case in the boots disclosed by Battistella, and therefore we
shall sustain this rejection of claim 102.
(2)
The second rejection under Section 102 is that Claims 57-59, 65, 68 and 69 are
anticipated by Spademan. We find ourselves in agreement with the positions taken by
the examiner in this rejection, and we will sustain it.
Looking first to claim 57, Spademan discloses a forward lean boot comprising, to
the same extent as the appellants’ invention, a medial cable member extending from
anchor point 16 to a common attachment means 10 and a lateral cable member
extending from anchor point 20 to common attachment means 10. We regard
attachment means 10 as being attached “to the forward portion of the boot,” as is
required by the claim, inasmuch as it is located forward of the rear of the boot. In this
regard, the appellants have not pointed out why the Spademan location should not be
considered to meet this limitation of the claim, and we note the similar location of the
attachment means in the illustration of the appellants’ invention in Figure 3 of the
drawings. An adjustable tension member 11 comprising guiding grooves 12 and 13 is
connected to the Spademan cable members “for altering the length of the cable
members,” to the same extent as the appellants’ invention does so. Further in this
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