Appeal No. 1999-0180
Application No. 08/629,260
apparatus referred to by appellants on page 1 of the
specification.
In rejecting the appealed claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103,
the examiner concedes that Garenfeld does not disclose
flexible protrusions on the vibration member, as called for in
independent claim 21. Nevertheless, the examiner considers
that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art to provide Garenfeld’s vibration member with a
plurality of flexible protrusion “since the flexible
protrusions are notorious[ly] old and well known in the art
for the comfortableness [sic] and easily transmitting [sic]
vibration forces into the body” (answer, page 5).
We will not sustain this rejection.
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings
of the references would have suggested to one of ordinary
skill in the art. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ
871,
881 (CCPA 1981). The mere fact that the prior art could be so
modified in the manner proposed by the examiner would not have
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