Appeal No. 1999-1742
Application No. 08/730,674
The appellant discloses an apparatus and method for sensing
the presence of a rearward facing child restraint seat on a
vehicle seat and preventing deployment of an air bag restraint.
See specification, p. 1. The appealed claims are directed to an
apparatus (claims 1-8 and 14-20) and method (claims 9-13) for
sensing the presence of an object. A copy of the claims under
appeal is set forth in the appendix to the appellant’s brief.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the
examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are:
Blackburn et al. 5,605,348 Feb. 25, 1997
(Blackburn) (filing date Nov. 3, 1993)
Breed et al. 5,653,462 Aug. 05, 1997
(Breed) (effective filing date Mar. 31, 1993)
Claims 1 through 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Blackburn in view of Breed.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced
by the examiner and the appellant regarding the above-noted
rejection, we make reference to the answer (Paper No. 8) for the
examiner’s complete reasoning in support of the rejection and to
the main and reply briefs (Paper Nos. 7 and 9, respectively) for
the appellant’s arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
-2-2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007