Appeal No. 1999-0090
Application 08/239,700
1.196(b).
Claims 1 to 3
Each of these claims recites that the functional occlusal surfaces of the artificial teeth are
configured to conform to certain curves. For example, claim 1 reads:
1. Artificial cuspless posterior upper and lower teeth comprising functional occlusal
surfaces configured to conform to the restored curves of Spee in an anterior posterior
direction.
Appellant and the examiner seem to be in agreement that these claims require that the functional
occlusal surfaces of the teeth form segments of the curve(s) in question; for example, as to claim 1, that
the functional occlusal surfaces are segments of a curve whose center of curvature is coincident with the
center of curvature of the restored curve of Spee. The examiner takes the position that since Dickson
discloses arranging the teeth along the curve of Spee, it would have been obvious "to modify
Heckhausen to include shaping the teeth with respect to the curves of Spee or medium incline z-z as
taught by Dickson" (answer, page 3). However, we do not agree, because it appears that Dickson's
teaching that his (cusped) artificial teeth should be set with their crowns 33 on the curve of Spee is in
essence a disclosure that they be set to replicate natural teeth (as shown in appellant's Fig. 1). In our
view, if this teaching of Dickson were applied to the teeth of Heckhausen by one of ordinary skill, the
Heckhausen teeth would, at most, be set so that the tips of their chewing surfaces ("crowns") followed
or were tangent to the curve of Spee, rather than rounding their chewing surfaces so that they would all
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