Appeal No. 1998-3286
Application 08/233,914
In any event, even if the hoop of Philion's Fig. 4 is
shown in its rest condition, we do not consider that it would
have been obvious therefrom to make the ends 17, 19 of the
Astle spring with a gap between them in their rest (unjoined)
condition. The above-quoted disclosure of Philion that it is
desirable that the ends of the hoop "shall be fashioned so
that they will readily interlock and hold securely" is
somewhat ambiguous, but we take it to mean simply that the
ends should be "fashioned" in the shape shown in Fig. 5, for
example, so that they will interlock. Philion says nothing
about the presence of a gap between the ends as shown in Fig.
4; this appears to be somewhat of an incidental showing, and
we do not consider that one of ordinary skill would extract
from Fig. 4 alone any teaching or suggestion that the ends
should be spaced when the hoop is in the rest condition,
and/or that the hoop should be in tension when the ends are
connected. In other words, nothing in Philion would have
motivated one of ordinary skill in the art to make Astle's
spring with a gap between the ends 17, 19. Rather, any
suggestion to that effect would appear to be the result of
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