Appeal No. 98-0973
Application No. 08/538,419
interior to repel the noise making ball encapsulated therein
to emit the desired jingling sound (page 1, column 2, line 3
et seq.). We also observe that the term “bounds” is used to
refer to the action of the ball when in use (page 1, column 2,
line 11), which indicates that the material from which it is
made is sufficiently soft to allow the ball to bounce.
Furthermore, it is our view that the artisan would understand
that a ball to be chewed by a dog must not have a surface that
is of a hardness such as that of iron or steel, in that it
could not be chewed and therefore would not be attractive to
dogs.
Claim 1 further requires that the ball be “of a size to
be completely encircled and gripped in the palm of the hand of
the user.” The appellant has provided guidance here, also, by
stating on page 1 of the specification that the inventive ball
is “smaller than a billiard ball,” and on page 3 that in the
preferred embodiment it has a diameter of “about one and one
half inches so as to be easily held in the palm of the hand.”
Salisbury provides no explicit size information about the dog
toy disclosed therein, and therefore it would be speculative
to assume that it meets this term of the claim.
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