Appeal No. 1999-1491
Application No. 08/386,670
Regarding claim 8 on appeal, the examiner has taken the
position that the teachings of Kelly would have made it
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of
appellant's invention to provide anchoring straps to Ledesma's
cushion in order to securely hold the cushion on top of the
operating table (12). Appellant argues (brief, pages 16 and
17) that there would be no reason to modify Ledesma as
suggested since first, Kelly's anchoring structure is merely
looped around, but not secured to the support structure as
required in claim 8. Secondly, appellant argues, there would
be little motivation to anchor a surgical pad like that of
Ledesma to a support structure since the patient is
unconscious and in all likelihood is an adult and therefore,
the danger of the cushion sliding is minimal. We agree with
the examiner for the following reasons. First, we consider
Kelly's anchoring structure (16-19) which is looped around the
support structure to be, by its broad definition, "secured" to
both the crib structure and the support structure since once
the loop is tightened, it holds the structure to which it is
affixed (the crib) in place without sliding (see col. 2, lines
8-16). Unpatented claims should be given the broadest
12
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