Appeal No. 1999-0605
Application No. 08/697,214
matter of claims 1, 5 and 6 on appeal, except for the fact that Trimmer fails to disclose that
the rod (25) extending centrally through the elastically flexible, corrugated plastic tube of the
flexible arm (24) is a “permanently bendable aluminum rod” as set forth in appellant’s claim
1. Simons is relied upon by the examiner as teaching permanently bendable metal rods
(10) in a flexibly repositionable support arm (see Simons, page 1, lines 78-94). According
to the examiner, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time
appellant’s invention was made to have made the rod (25) of Trimmer as a permanently
bendable rod as in Simons in order to support an object as disclosed by Simons.
Regarding the requirement that the claimed rod be a bendable aluminum rod, the
examiner has urged that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
have fabricated the rod of the combination of Trimmer and Simons out of aluminum “in
order to reduce the manufacturing costs and to provide a light-weight support arm and as a
common type permanently bendable metal material” (answer, page 5).
Like appellant, we perceive that the support spine (25) seen in Figure 3 of Trimmer is
composed of a plurality of rigid rod segments or members that are pivotally secured
together at their ends so as to provide additional support and rigidity to the flexible arm
(24). See, particularly, claim 6 of Trimmer and column 2, lines 57-59. As for Simon, this
patent indicates that the inside of the conduit of the flexible arm (2) is “filled with a bundle of
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