Appeal No. 96-1201
Application 08/122,970
admitted prior art. We disagree with this argument of the
appellants. The examiner has clearly referred to figures 1 and 2
of appellants’ drawing and appellants’ specification pertaining
thereto. This portion of appellants’ disclosure clearly conveys
that frusto-conical depressions are known as reinforcement around
tooling holes in an automotive body panel.
The appellants' second argument is that there is no
teaching or suggestion that would have motivated one of ordinary
skill to combine the collective teachings of DeRees and the
admitted prior art. We are in agreement with this argument of
appellants. The examiner has argued that the motivation for
combining the teaching of DeRees with admitted prior art is that
the larger depressions shown at 120 or 112 in DeRees would add
additional strength when used around the tooling hole 14 of
appellants’ admitted prior art. The examiner considers that such
shapes as 120 and 112 in DeRees would inherently not funnel paint
and therefore eliminate runs or drips. The examiners states that
nonfunneling comes along with the larger depression added for
strength as "free for the ride". We disagree with the examiner's
rationale for three reasons.
First of all, the examiner has offered no evidence or
reasonable basis for the assumption that a larger depression
-4-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007