Appeal No. 97-1835
Application 08/178,068
make clear that the missing descriptive material is necessar-
ily present in the reference and it would so have been recog-
nized by persons of ordinary skill. See Robertson, 169 F.3d
at ____, 49 USPQ2d
at 1950-51.
The examiner further contends that the unapplied
references show that the stiffness characteristics claimed in
claim 1 are "true for virtually all materials with some degree
of resiliency." Answer, page 7. With regard to the first of
those references, we note the first cited graph is a stress v.
strain curve illustrating creep for a foam automobile seat.
Creep, of course, is the tendency of a material to deform
under sustained loading. Impact connotes instantaneous load-
ing. Therefore, while the graph appears to depict the three
slopes necessary to satisfy appellant's three claimed
stiffnesses, it can be seen that a creep test has little
relevance to the claimed invention and certainly will not
support the examiner's finding of inherency. With respect to
the second uncited reference, we merely note that the steel is
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007