Appeal No. 97-3194 Page 31
Application No. 08/442,816
could be due to the contemporary drive toward greater use of
automated data processing techniques).
The declaration contain only assertions that the locks
being sold are "covered by one or more claims of the above-
captioned application" and that "the success of the bicycle
lock in the marketplace is due in large measure to the
features of the locks that are covered by the claims of the
patent application." This is insufficient to establish the
required nexus. Claims are not technical descriptions of the
disclosed inventions but are legal documents like the
descriptions of lands by metes and bounds in a deed which
define the area conveyed but do not describe the land.
Because of this characteristic of claims, the commercial
success of a machine "claimed" may be due entirely to
improvements or modifications made by others to the invention
disclosed in the application for patent. Such success is not
pertinent to the nonobviousness of the advantages inherent in
what is specifically disclosed in the application are not to
be considered in determining nonobviousness. In re Vamco
Machine and Tool, Inc., 752 F.2d 1564, 1577, 224 USPQ 617, 625
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