Appeal No. 96-0918
Application 08/059,017
order to remove dirt. As such, there would appear to be no3
reason from providing bristles in Wechsler that have sharp
edges in order to bring about the sort of scraping action
provided by Larson’s bristles, apart from a hindsight reading
of what these references teach. The examiner’s reliance on
Racioppi for a suggestion that it would have been obvious to
releasably mount Wechsler’s clothes brush to a support surface
also is not well taken. In that Wechsler’s brush is obviously
designed to be held in the hand when in use, there would
appear to be no cogent reason for releasably mounting it to a
support surface in use, as we understand the examiner to be
proposing. In short, when we put aside the appellants’
disclosure and concentrate only on the teachings of Wechsler,
Larson and Racioppi, it is clear to us that the ordinarily
skilled artisan would not have combined these reference
teachings in a manner that would have resulted in the subject
matter of claims 23 and/or 29, the two independent claims on
3We appreciate that it might possibly be argued that
Wechsler’s brush could be used to remove mud splashes from
clothes having a soft or fuzzy surface such that the bristles
would inherently penetrate into the fibers. In our view, this
would amount to a hindsight analysis of Wechsler’s disclosure
rather than on anything fairly taught by that reference.
8
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