Appeal No. 98-2946
Application 08/291,596
delamination. Attempts have been made, but those
attempts have not been successful. For example
snowboard manufacturers have added aluminum plates
and/or rivets to the nose and tail portions of the
snowboard. Those techniques did not solve the
delamination problem, although it helped to minimize
the problem, and those techniques have added excess
weight which appears to adversely affect the
performance of the boards. Also the addition of the
metal components is expensive. As a result a number
of snowboard manufacturers who at one time used
aluminum plates on the noses of snowboards have now
stopped using them.
Appellant then states that the Nose Guard snowboard tips sold®
by Surfco Hawaii are illustrated in Figs. 1 to 7 of his
application, and have solved the delamination problem. With
regard to sales, paragraph 6 of appellant’s declaration
states:
6. Since Surfco Hawaii started to sell Nose
Guard protective tips covered by the claims of this®
application (see Exhibit B) in about November of
1994, the total sales have been $65,099 (which is
10,850 actual pieces). This is despite the fact
that the product was introduced from scratch, to a
market that had never seen another product like it,
and despite the fact that Surfco Hawaii did not have
longstanding or significant contacts in the
snowboard trade, and is a small company with only
ten employees without experience in marketing to
snowboarders. The total expenditure for advertising
in this time period was $8,604.45, which was
primarily directed to getting the public exposed to
this new product. Sales have continuously increased
since introduction for each winter season, and the
sales have been as a result of the product being
able to perform as designed -- namely to prevent
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