Appeal No. 96-1823
Application No. 08/187,521
Corp. v. American Maize-Products Co., 840 F.2d 902, 907, 5 USPQ2d
1788, 1792 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
With this as background, we analyze the examiner's rejection
of independent claims 1 and 6 based on 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Bills in view of Fry and Okumoto.
In the rejection (answer, pp. 3-4), the examiner determined
that: (1) Bills uses a foamed plastic material to reduce unwanted
vibration, thus improving the feel of the club head; (2) Bills
differs from the claimed invention in that Bills does not
disclose a filling comprising an epoxy resin and microballoons;
(3) Okumoto shows it to be old in the golf art to use an epoxy
resin and microballoon mixture to replace a foam material
conventionally used in clubs since the mixture increases the
fracture strength of the club head; and (4) Fry discloses a
filler material in a putter that is used to selectively weight
either the head or shaft in order to improve the feel of the
club. The examiner then determined that it would have been
obvious to one skilled in the art to modify Bills by replacing
the foam used in the shaft portion with a resin and microballoon
mixture as taught by Okumoto since Fry would have motivated the
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007