Appeal No. 97-0695
Application No. 08/273,466
the end of the stick when the stick is being used in the
treatment of the body.5
In applying the above noted test for obviousness, we
reach the conclusion that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of the appellants'
invention to fabricate a plurality of Janssen's generally
rectangular (i.e., right, regular parallelopiped) head
mounting sections 20 from wood as suggested by Janssen and to
then form the serrations thereon by barbing the wood as
suggested and taught by Ager. Additionally, we agree with the
examiner's determinations that (1) Janssen's head mounting
section 20 is formed from an autoclavable material since both
wood and plastic as taught by Janssen are well suited to
undergo treatment in an autoclave, and (2) the recited
dimensional limitations are matters of design choice lacking
any criticality since they solve no stated problem especially
since the appellants have not contested otherwise.
5See column 1, lines 8-15, of Ager.
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