Appeal No. 2000-0852 Page 6
Application No. 09/061,314
Since the appellant has chosen to group dependent claims 2-5 with claim 1 (Brief, page
4), the rejection of the dependent claims also is sustained.
We reach the opposite conclusion, however, with regard to independent claim 9
and dependent claims 10 and 11. The argued difference with regard to claim 9 is that it
requires that the target have “a baseball shape,” a feature which we agree is not present in
Wolfe. A baseball is spherical in shape, with no protrusions from its surface except for the
slightly upstanding stitching at the seams, and that is exactly what the appellant discloses,
except for that portion of the bottom where the sphere appears in the Figure 2
representation to meld into the apex of the target support. From our perspective, the head
of the Wolfe device is not spherical, that is, “a baseball shape.” As shown from the side in
Figure 1, the head appears to be elongated and to include a chin portion. A protruding
nose is quite evident in Figure 3. Wolfe describes the head as being “sculptured” and
including a “projecting nose” to make it more life-like (column 3, lines 26-28).
Wolfe thus fails to disclose or teach the target shape recited in independent claim
9, and we will not sustain the Section 102 rejection of claim 9 or dependent claims 10 and
11.
The Rejections Under Section 103
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,
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