Appeal No. 97-4247
Application No. 08/190,618
972, 973 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the
requisite motivation must stem from some teaching, suggestion
or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and
not from the appellant's disclosure. See, for example,
Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5
USPQ2d 1434, 1052 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825
(1988). The appellant’s invention is a clamp for
gripping elongate members. It comprises a body having an axis
and a surface inclined at an acute angle to the axis, a
support having apertures, and movable elements which extend
through the apertures for operative engagement with the
inclined surface on the one hand and with the outer surface of
the elongate member on the other hand. An objective of the
appellant’s invention is to accommodate differences in the
ovality of a pipe-shaped element in a clamp (specification,
page 2). This is manifested in independent claims 15 and 19
by the requirement of
the apertures being shaped to permit both axial and
radial movement of the elements relative to the
support for accommodating ovality of the elongate
member when the movable elements move relatively
6
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