Appeal No. 1998-2791 Page 9
Application No. 08/422,676
externally wetted. While we appreciate that Lieberman and
Kato are directed broadly to the problem addressed by Whyte
(design of self-inflating articles using gas evolving
material), given the disparate operation of the self-inflating
mechanism of Whyte as compared with those of Lieberman and
Kato, it is not apparent to us why one of ordinary skill in
the art would have been led by the teachings of these
references to replace the self-inflating arrangement of Whyte,
requiring no deliberate inflating action by the user, with
self-inflating arrangements as taught by Lieberman and Kato.
As to the examiner's stated motivation for making the
proposed modification (Paper No. 15, page 4), the examiner has
not provided any factual support for the conclusion that the
proposed modification of Whyte would have yielded a more
simplified, economically efficient or reliably inflated
structure.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the examiner's 35
U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claim 28, or claims 29, 31-34 and
36 which depend therefrom.
CONCLUSION
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