Appeal No. 1999-1037
Application 08/804,284
as called for in claim 11. Nevertheless, the examiner
considers (answer, page 4) that Carney ‘112 teaches this
concept. Based on this alleged teaching of Carney ‘112, the
examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to modify
the collapsible members of Boedecker by providing in the
Boedecker device collapsible members having different
resistances to crushing in order to increase the control of
deformation of the collapsible members thereby increasing the
cushioning effect of the apparatus.
The thrust of Carney ‘112 is the use of a particular type
of plastic material, namely, high molecular weight/high
density polyethylene (HMW/HDPE), to fabricate collapsible
members for crushable roadway crash cushions. We appreciate
that in Carney ‘112 the collapsible members of HMW/HDPE
comprise cylinders that may have different diameters and
different wall thicknesses (column 3, lines 59-61; column 16,
lines 52-54). We also appreciate that Carney ‘112 discloses
that there are a variety of prior art highway safety crash
cushions that utilize cylinders made of mild steel where the
wall thicknesses may vary from cylinder to cylinder (column 9,
lines 16-18; column 9, lines 21-23). Still further, we
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