Appeal No. 96-1820
Application No. 08/189,140
(specification, page 3). Explicit consideration of these factors
is absent from Junior Balls, which is the only applied reference
directed to a baseball of size smaller than that of a regulation
baseball. Moreover, there is nothing, in our view, which would
have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art that these
factors be present in a baseball of reduced size, especially in
view of the fact that the Junior Balls baseball is not made of
the same materials as a regulation baseball, as will be discussed
below.
With this as prologue, independent claim 1 requires, inter
alia, that the inventive practice baseball include a central core
“having a diameter in the range of 0.85 inches to 1.18 inches,”
whereas the central core in a regulation baseball has a diameter
of “about 1.3125 inches,” according to the description provided
on page 5 of the appellant’s specification. Thus, the core of
the regulation baseball does not fall within the range recited in
claim 1. While the Junior Balls baseball is smaller in outside
circumference than a regulation baseball (8.5 inches vs. 9.25
inches), the diameter of its core is not disclosed nor, in our
view, is there any teaching in the reference which would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art that the core be of
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