Appeal No. 96-0324
Application 08/045,747
would have been obvious, absent any reasonable suggestion or
incentive recognized in the art, to merely provide the bicycle
of Smith with wheels of different sizes and, more particularly,
to provide the bicycle of Smith with 20 inch wheels. This
determination stems from our earlier determination that Smith
fails to teach or suggest the structural limitation of
appellant's claim 1 concerning converting "a long fork to a
twenty inch fork" and thereby providing the illusion of a longer
and lower, low-rider look, while maintaining the same standard
safe ground clearance of the frame and the pedals as existed
before the specially bent fork was added thereto. None of the
additionally applied references addresses or suggests such a
conversion either. We also again mention the other above-noted
shortcomings
of Smith with regard to the lack of "tubular furcations" and
"struts" therein, which deficiencies have not been addressed by
the examiner.
As for the examiner's proposal to alter the simple
shock absorbing front end of the bicycle in Smith to be a
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