Appeal No. 1999-0113 Page 8
Application No. 08/472,321
a flat knuckle shield (16). According to the examiner, Orford fails to disclose that the loop
members (hand grips) are made of resilient stretchable material. However, it is the examiner's
position that, in view of the teachings of Dubach, it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to manufacture the folded and joined loops (14) of Orford of a flexible
and stretchable material and in an I-shaped configuration as disclosed by Dubach as a means to
enhance the grip of the device of Orford and as a means to strengthen the muscles of the hand
of a user (answer, page 4). The examiner further points out that it is well known in the art to
manufacture resilient exercising cords of various resiliencies to vary exercising difficulties and
apparently concludes that it would have been an obvious matter of design
choice to manufacture the resilient cord of Orford so as to have a spring force permitting the
cord to be stretched by a person's muscle force to a length exceeding at least 100% of its length
at rest.
Initially, as discussed above, any extension of the resilient cord, no matter how small,
constitutes a stretching "to a length which exceeds at least 100% of its length at rest" as
required by the claim. Thus, the disclosure by Orford (page 1, lines 63-66) that "[the strength
of the cord is such that the user needs to make a fair effort in order to stretch the cords, but not
so great that strain is imposed" clearly meets the spring force limitation of
claim 5.
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