Appeal No. 96-1659
Application 08/166,931
examiner that the invention as broadly recited in claim 53
would have been obvious to the artisan in view of the applied
prior art and the level of skill in this art.
The artisan would have known that all electrical
wiring within a building includes a ground conductor or a
conductor at ground potential. This ground conductor
represents the “certain conductor” of claim 53. Claim 53
recites that a person who is grounded would not be shocked by
touching this certain conductor. Since the certain conductor
is at ground level and since the person is grounded as recited
in the claim, there would be no hazardous shock when these two
ground level items contact each other. Therefore, we sustain
the rejection of claim 53 under
35 U.S.C. § 103.
With respect to dependent claim 55, appellant argues
that the recitation of the source of electrical power
including a pair of telephone lines from a public telephone
company is not described or suggested by Ferguson and/or
Watkins [brief, page 5]. The examiner responds that Watkins
would have suggested the obviousness of employing conventional
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