Appeal No. 98-1047
Application 08/612,814
According to the examiner, it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art to "construct the ball-like
deformable grip taught by Scatterday with indicia printed on
the exterior surface as taught by Thomas as an alternate
medium in which to have calendar indicia disposed and a means
of providing expandable or stretchable indicia" (answer, page
4). To support this conclusion, the examiner takes official
notice that it is old and well known in the art to place
indicia on the exterior
surface of an elastic balloon or ball and that the indicia
will deform or stretch as the underlying surface deforms and
stretches (see pages 4 through 6 in the answer).
We agree with the appellant, however, that Scatterday,
Thomas and the prior art knowledge officially noticed by the
examiner would not have suggested the deformable calendar
recited in independent claims 1 and 8.
As indicated above, Scatterday's deformable, ball-like
grip does not include any indicia, much less the tabular
register of calendar indicia required by claims 1 and 8. The
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