Appeal No. 1997-2248
Application No. 08/378,513
that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at
the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary
skill in the art.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 rejection of claims 9 and 14, and of claims 10 through
12 and 15 through 18 which depend therefrom, as being
unpatentable over Lucas.
Pearson, the primary reference in the last of the
examiner’s rejections, discloses “a ring spanner made wholly
of fibre-reinforced plastics, e.g. nylon or polycarbonate,
with the exception of a ring head reinforcing metal ring,
preferably of paramagnetic material, keyed into the fibre-
reinforced plastics” (page 1, lines 35 through 40).
Pearson does not respond to the limitations in claim
20 pertaining to the positioning of a gear insert in a mold
cavity. Inasmuch as Lucas does not cure this shortcoming, the
examiner’s conclusion (see pages 7 and 8 in the answer) that
the combined teachings of these references would have
suggested the subject matter recited in claim 20 must fall.
Hence, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 rejection of claim 20 as being unpatentable over Pearson
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