Appeal No. 98-0973
Application No. 08/538,419
from which the ball is made, in view of its intended use it
can safely be assumed that its surface is hard. It is
described as being colored, although there is no clue as to
whether this is accomplished by coating the outside surface,
or by coloring the material from which it is made. As
evidenced by the shading in Figure 2, the Lambert ball is
solid, and does not have an interior chamber.
It is the examiner’s opinion that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the
Salisbury ball with a decorative coating “for purposes of mere
ornamental design” (Answer, page 3). We disagree with this
because there is no clear teaching in Lambert that color is
provided by a coating, as well as on the basis that there is
no evidence from which to conclude placing a coating upon the
Salisbury ball would serve a legitimate purpose, inasmuch as
its intended use is as a chew toy for dogs. In fact, its
intended use would seem to provide a disincentive for such a
modification, since a “coating” would seem to be incompatible
with a surface that is to be chewed by an animal.
In addition, as we pointed out above, there are several
other shortcomings in the Salisbury reference which would not
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007