Appeal No. 2000-2061 Page 4
Application No. 08/463,843
would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to combine reference teachings to
arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973 (Bd. Pat. App. &
Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some teaching, suggestion
or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge generally available to one of
ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure. See, for example, Uniroyal,
Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert.
denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
The Rejection Based Upon Funck And Desma-Werke
This rejection is applied against claims 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25-27, 30, 34, 39-43,
47 and 50-52, the method claims of which require that there be a mold insert on the bottom
of the last which extends continuously from the toe region to the heel region of the shoe,
and the article claims that there be a cavity in the tread sole extending continuously from
the toe region to the heel region.
Funck illustrates two embodiments of a shoe in which cushion inserts are utilized for
the purpose of providing “extremely good supporting characteristics” (column 1, lines 18-
23). As can be seen in Figure 1, in a first embodiment a first cushioning insert is located
in a cavity beneath the toe region of the wearer’s foot and a second cushioning insert is
installed beneath the heel region, separated from the first. Therefore, it is apparent that the
last for producing such a shoe would have two spaced mold inserts. Figure 4 discloses a
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