Appeal No. 98-2124 Page 14
Application No. 08/454,898
teaching, we must point out that the designation of certain of
the contacts to be "ground" contacts and others to be "signal"
contacts is merely a statement of intended use which cannot be
relied on to distinguish structure from the prior art. See,
e.g., In re Schreiber, supra, In re Yanush, 477 F.2d 958, 959,
177 USPQ 705, 706 (CCPA 1973) and In re Casey, 370 F.2d 576,
580, 152 USPQ 235, 238 (CCPA 1967). Moreover, Biechler fairly
suggests such an arrangement in column 3, lines 65-68, and
column 1, line 29.
The appellants argue that there is no suggestion to
combine the teachings of Biechler and Baechtle in the manner
proposed by the examiner. We disagree. Baechtle clearly
teaches the advantages of providing a resilient solder tail 124
having a spring force for the purpose of accommodating
variations in the surface of the mother board in order that the
solder tails make proper contact with the mother board before
they are soldered (see, e.g., column 2, lines 46-49; column 3,
lines 50-54; column 6, lines 51-56), thereby avoiding deficient
solder joints due to improper contact when the solder tails are
actually subsequently soldered to the mother board (see column
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