Appeal No. 2000-1614
Application No. 08/944,371
not argued separately from parent claim 1. The rejection of
claim 4 will also be sustained, since Cover is considered to
meet the limitations of that claim for the reasons discussed
under rejection (1), supra.
Rejections (3) and (4)
The claims to which these rejections apply all include
the requirement that the arm rest member "of one said upper
rod" (claim 5) or "of one of said at least one upper member
[sic]" (claim 9) "is a spherical ball." The examiner cites
Baggett, which discloses apparatus comprising a rod 45 which
is pivotally attached to a base 13 attached to a belt 19 or
harness 25 on the body B of user U. At the other end 49 of
the rod is a cap 75, which appears from the drawings (Figs. 3
and 10) to be the shape of a crutch tip. The examiner takes
the position that (answer, pages 4 and 5):
It would have been obvious to one having
ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to have modified the arm rest
in Cover combined with Dube to have included the
rounded arm rest member as taught by Baggett for
the purpose of providing an alternative means
for steadying objects used with the arm rest.
It would have been obvious to one having
ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to have modified the rounded
member in Baggett to have been a spherical ball
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