Appeal No. 1998-3426
Application 08/762,204
“wrapped around at least a pair of strings.” The examiner has additionally
characterized the nut and bolt members (33) of Ross Figures 5 and 6 as inherently
being movable relative to the blocks (31, 32) “to some degree,” and has concluded
that the device seen in Ross has inherent properties of damping vibrations and is
capable of vibrating over the same frequency range but out of phase with the stringed
racquet so as to damp vibrations in the racquet. Like appellants, we find the
examiner’s position that the claimed subject matter as set forth in claims 1 through 10
on appeal is anticipated by Ross to be in error.
In the first place, even assuming that the blocks (31, 32) of Ross are made of
plastic, such fact alone provides no disclosure or teaching of a “viscoelastic member”
as required in the claims on appeal, and certainly provides no teaching of a
viscoelastic member that is “adapted to be wrapped around at least a pair of strings
of a stringed racquet” as set forth in independent claim 1 on appeal, and in
independent claim 7 in slightly different language. Secondly, we see no basis upon
which to conclude that the nut and bolt members of Ross will “inherently” be movable
relative to the blocks therein in response to vibrations of the stringed racquet induced
by an impact of an object on the strings of the stringed racquet as recited in claim 1,
and no reason whatsoever to conclude that the device of Ross will somehow vibrate
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