Appeal No. 1999-0639 Page 4
Application No. 08/592,109
portion. Claims 11 and 12 recite a method of climbing a
ladder having a curved slot in the rails thereof and claim 13
recites a method of forming a ladder comprising steps of
piercing curved slots in the ladder rails. As explained on
page 2 of the appellant's specification, "a shoe that contains
a curved slot must be made larger than others to contain the
curved slot." According to the appellant, providing the non-
linear slot in the rail allows for a "smaller, lighter weight
and cheaper shoe."
In rejecting claims 1 through 13 as being unpatentable
over Kiska, the examiner recognizes that the Kiska ladder
differs from the claimed invention in that Kiska discloses
provision of non-linear slots (62) in side plate portions (56,
58) of rail attachment portions (12) of ladder shoes (10)
attached to the bottom of ladder rails (14), while these
claims require the non-linear slot to be in the ladder rail.
To overcome this deficiency, it is the examiner's position
that "it would have been an obvious matter of reversal of
parts to one of ordinary skill in the art to have the slot in
the rail web rather than the ladder foot" (answer, page 5).
The examiner adds that
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