Appeal 2007-0554
Reexamination Nos. 90/006,118 & 90/006,254
Patent 6,196,681 B1
for separating the adjacent ones of the base sections 20 as well as the
contact sections 21 so as to provide the face contact means 2 with
better compliance with the wearer’s face contour.
Lin shows eyewear having “a transparent lens portion detachably
secured to the hard portion [of a unit frame] and depending from the brow
portion thereof” (Br. App. Claim 3). We conclude that it would have been
obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art reading Conway and Lin
to detachably secure a lens to the hard brow bar portion of Conway’s
eyewear in light of Lin’s teaching. Conway explicitly states (Conway, p. 7,
last two sentences; emphasis added):
[V]arious modifications may be made to the invention as would be
obvious to one skilled in the art. For example, the inventive method
may be used to form individual eye rims which are secured together
with a separate bridge component, or to form a single brow bar to
which single or paired lenses are mounted.
Moreover, we find no reversible in the Examiner’s conclusion that it
would have been obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art to use a
single co-injection mold to make the eyewear described or suggested by
Conway with the lens securing hard portion of the unitary structure
including vertically positioned mounting blocks 35 and venting notches 36
of the type depicted in Bolle’s Figure 1. Appellant argues that a person
having ordinary skill in the art would find it impossible to impart Bolle’s
design into Conway’s unitary structure (Br., pp. 15-16). We disagree.
Conway mounts his lenses to the hard outer portion of the single brow bar,
unitary structure of its eye covering. Appellant has not explained why
Bolle’s mounting blocks/notches for detachably mounting lenses to its frame
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