Appeal No. 99-0210
Application 08/732,285
follows that the selection of the particular material recited
in claim 29 would have been within the purview of one of
ordinary skill in the art, and we also will sustain the
rejection of claim 29.
We will not, however, sustain the rejection of claim 30,
which depends from claim 28, or of claims 31-33, which depend
from claim 30. Claim 30 requires that there be cores in the
wall and foot of hard, stretch-proof material. This structure
is not taught by the applied references, and therefore they do
not establish a prima facie case of obviousness with respect
to these claims.
In arriving at the conclusions set forth above, we have
carefully considered all of the arguments advanced by the
appellant. However, as to those rejections that we have
sustained, the appellant has not persuaded us that the
positions taken by the examiner were in error. With regard to
the argument suggesting that the examiner utilized hindsight
in combining the references, any judgment on obviousness is in
a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight
reasoning, but so long as it takes into account only knowledge
which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the
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