Appeal No. 1999-0403
Application 08/804,095
floor 18” (answer, page 5). Based on these teachings, the
examiner concludes that “it would have been obvious . . . to
associate plural rings and a floor with the Lund inflatable[5]
article as being a conventional type of inflatable article”
(answer, page 5).
Even if we were to agree with the examiner that, as a
general proposition, it would have been obvious to replace the
inflatable tube of Lund with a raft like that of Reinhardt to
provide therein an inflatable member that comprises upper and
lower inflatable rings and a floor, we do not consider that
the subject matter of claim 11 would ensue. Claim 11 sets
forth that the floor of the swimming pool “extend[s] across
the bottom of the lower inflatable ring.” In contrast, when
it comes to a raft
5In light of the examiner’s statement on page 8 of the
answer to the effect that he believes it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to substitute one
conventional raft for another in view of the teachings of the
applied prior art, we consider the examiner’s “association” of
plural rings and a floor with Lund’s inflatable article
(answer, page 5) to involve replacing the inflatable tube 11
of Lund with an inflatable raft like that of Reinhardt.
10
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