Appeal No. 96-1237
Application No. 07/994,770
The Admitted Prior Art shown in Figure 1 of the drawing and
discussed on pages 2 and 3 of the specification for this
application.
The claims on appeal stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over the Admitted Prior Art in view of
Cunnington and further in view Millard . On page 4 of the 3
Answer, the examiner expresses his obviousness conclusion in the
following manner:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art to place a resilient spacer in the hole of the
admitted prior art tape and insulation seal [shown at
the upper portion in Figure 1 of the appellants’
drawing] in order to improve the insulation ability of
the taped hole because of the teachings of Cunnington.
It further would have been obvious to use a foam spacer
because of the teachings of Millard to use foam as a
resilient spacer.
We refer to the Brief and Reply Brief and to the Answer for
a complete exposition of the respective viewpoints expressed by
the appellants and the examiner concerning the above noted
rejection.
Opinion
The rejection before us cannot be sustained.
Obviousness cannot be established by combining pieces of
prior art absent some teaching, suggestion or incentive
3The appealed claims will stand or fall together; see page
2 of the Answer and 37 CFR 1.192(c)(5)(1993).
3
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