Appeal No. 97-4206
Application 08/662,263
desired ratchet tooth and the rigid lever arm is fastened to
the ratch mechanism by a threaded lock rod 26, which must be
unfastened and refastened each time the blade is moved from
one angular orientation to another. There is simply nothing
in the disparate teachings of either Brooker or Favreau which
would fairly suggest modifying the flange on the end of the
spring arm of the admitted prior art in the manner proposed by
the examiner. While the examiner opines that the proposed
modification would "more securely lock" the blade of the
admitted prior art, the mere fact that such a result would
occur does not serve as a proper basis for concluding that
such a modification would have been obvious. Instead, it is
the prior art teachings which must be sufficient to suggest to
one of ordinary skill in the art to make the modification
needed to arrive at the claimed invention (see, e.g., In re
Lalu, 747 F.2d 703, 705, 223 USPQ 1257, 1258 (Fed. Cir.
1984)). Here, there is no such suggestion. Accordingly, we
will not sustain the rejection of claims 1, 2, 7,
8 and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the
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