Appeal No. 1999-0704 Page 4
Application No. 08/558,661
Reference is made to the brief and reply brief (Paper Nos. 17 and 20) and the answer
(Paper No. 18) for the respective positions of the appellants and the examiner with regard to
the merits of these rejections.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellants' specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the respective
positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we
make the determinations which follow.
Rejection (1)
The examiner's rationale for the rejection of independent claim 1 appears on pages 3
and 4 of the answer and reads as follows:3
The patent to Kelly shows a fishing rod in Fig. 12 having a rod tube 20 with
inner and out [sic: outer] surfaces along the longitudinal axis. The inner surface
defines a passageway for passing a fishing line through the interior of the rod.
Kelly shows fishing line guide 66 projecting from the inner surface of the rod
and cushioning means or resilient sleeve 68 formed between the guide and a
body layer of the rod tube. Fig. 13 of Kelly shows line guide 70 mounted
directly to the inner surface of the fishing rod 20. In reference to claim 1, Kelly
shows a rod tube of synthetic resin as a matrix with reinforcing fibers. It would
have been obvious to mount the line guide 70 of Kelly with a resilient layer at
the front and rear sides of the line guide as shown in Fig. 12 to reduce stress at
the ling [sic: line] guide-rod interface by increasing the surface area of the
cushioning as shown by Kelly in Fig. 12. It is not clear if the guides 66 are
3The page numbering of the examiner's answer is irregular, in that the third page is not numbered and page
numbering resumes on the fourth page with "Page 2." Our references to pages of the answer in this decision will use
the ordinal number of the page rather than the page number actually printed on the page.
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