Appeal No. 97-1037
Application 08/467,869
rejection of claim 1 and the rejection of claim 2, since the
latter claim stands or falls with claim 1.
Claim 5 adds the further limitations to claim 1 of the
two plates having “essentially the same thickness” and the thick-
ness of the rubber layer being “about one-third” of the thickness
of each plate.
It is the opinion of this panel of the board that the
applied references would have been suggestive of plates of the
same thickness, and based upon these prior art teachings,
considered as a whole, it is readily apparent to us that the
selection of a particular thickness for the rubber layer would
have been an obvious matter for one having ordinary skill in this
art. Rubber layer thickness clearly appears to us to be a result
effective variable in this art. Accordingly, the claimed value
of “about one-third” is seen to be simply a working or optimum
value obtainable through routine experimentation. See In re
Boesch, 617 F.2d 272, 276, 205 USPQ 215, 219 (CCPA 1980) and
In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955).
Appellant’s specification buttresses this viewpoint, since the
rubber layer thickness value of “about one-third” is not indi-
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