Appeal No. 96-1303
Application 08/098,516
The basis of the examiner’s rejection is set forth on pages 3
and 4 of the final rejection (Paper No. 10), and need not be
repeated here. The motivation for combining the references,
i.e., for substituting Caveney’s attachment portion for
Hopkins’, would be, according to the examiner, "to provide
the latter’s device with an alternate attachment portion"
(final rejection, page 4), being "a mere substitution of
equivalents" (answer, page 5).
We do not consider this rejection to be well taken.
In Hopkins, the two parts 15,16 of the attachment portion are
brought into engagement by pivoting them around hinges 13
until shoulders 24,25 hook together, while in Caveney, the end
40 of strap 24 is connected to head 26 by inserting it through
slot 56 in the head for the teeth 30 on the strap to engage
the teeth 66 on the head. The manner in which Hopkins
connects the two parts of the attachment portion of his device
together, by pivoting them into side-by-side position (Fig.
4), is so different from Caveney’s insertion of the end of a
strap through a slot to make the connection that it is not
evident how one of ordinary skill would even approach
6
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