Appeal No. 98-2946
Application 08/291,596
the evidence submitted by appellant. Appellant asserts that 2
the evidence (declarations) establishes commercial success,
and even if it does not, it shows a long felt need in the art
that is solved by the claimed invention (brief, page 6). In
the final rejection (Paper No. 27), the examiner found the
declarations of appellant, Vermillion, Bruggeman and Martin to
be insufficient to overcome the rejection because they failed 3
to establish (1) a nexus between the claimed invention and
evidence of commercial success, (2) a long-felt need, and (3)
actual commercial success.
We first consider the declaration of appellant, who is
the president of Surfco Hawaii, a company that sells Nose
Guard protective tips for surfboards and snowboards.®
Appellant states that ever since snowboards were first sold in
the United States there has been a problem of delamination due
to impact. He further states in paragraph 3:
3. Despite the fact that snowboards have been
sold commercially in the United States since at
least 1978, no one heretofore solved the problem of
2 This evidence consists of the four declarations noted above, as well as the
previously filed declarations of the ten persons listed in Paper No. 23, page 12, n.5.
3 Although he only referred to rejection (2), the examiner presumably also
intended to include rejection (1) in his finding.
5
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