Appeal No. 1999-1987 Page 25
Application No. 08/400,129
§ 1.192(c)(7), claim 11 falls with claim 9. Thus, it follows
that the decision of the examiner to reject claim 11 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 is also affirmed.
Claim 10
Claim 10 reads as follows: "The apparatus of Claim 1,
wherein said tether is further comprised of a substantially
nonresilient proximal portion having proximal and distal ends,
and a linearly resilient distal portion having proximal and
distal ends."
In our view, these additional limitations read on the
Figure 5 embodiment of Alexander wherein the tether comprises
both line 14 (i.e., a substantially nonresilient proximal
portion having proximal and distal ends) and the two portions
76, 78 of elastic cord (i.e., a linearly resilient distal
portion having proximal and distal ends). Moreover, in
applying the above-noted test for obviousness, we additionally
conclude that it would have been further obvious at the time
the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in
the art to have modified Alexander's line 14 to include both a
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