Appeal No. 2000-0852 Page 9
Application No. 09/061,314
Claims 6, 7, 9 and 12 stand rejected as being unpatentable over Griffin and Rubin,
which discloses a punching bag attached to a flexible support that is mounted on a flat
base filled with water or sand. This reference was cited by the examiner only for its
teachings of using sand or water in the base and a mechanism for adjusting the height of
the target (Answer, page 5), which teachings do not overcome the fact that Griffin’s target
is not secured to the support. In this regard, we further point out that while the target in
Rubin is fixed to the support, it suffers from the same lack of suggestion problem as Liao
when considering combining this feature with the Griffin device, wherein the ball is not
coupled to the target support. In any event, we will not sustain this rejection.
The last of the Section 103 rejections is that claims 1 and 8 are unpatentable over
Richards, This reference discloses a one-piece elongated inflatable toy in the nature of a
free-standing and self-righting punching bag that is essentially in the shape of an elongated
cylinder with rounded ends. We do not agree with the examiner that this device comprises
a “target support” having a terminal end with a “target” coupled thereto and, in our view, no
suggestion exists that would have motivated one of ordinary skill in the art to modify it so
that those components were present. Thus, Richards fails to establish a prima facie case
of obviousness with regard to independent claim 1 or dependent claim 8, and we will not
sustain this rejection.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007