Appeal No. 2000-2061 Page 8
Application No. 08/463,843
the last, and passing the cord transversely beneath the upper, where knots are tied. To
accommodate this, a transverse groove 22 is provided in the mold insert. See column 2,
lines 24-41. The depth of the groove is not specified.
In meeting the terms of the claims that are the subject of this rejection, which require
either that the mold insert extend continuously from the toe region to the heel region or that
the shoe have a cavity so extending, the examiner has taken the position that the groove
“may not extend entirely through the land to the body portion . . . and therefore may be a
superficial groove,” in which case the mold insert would be “continuous” from the toe region
to the heel region (Answer, page 5, emphasis added). The claims also require that the
mold extension or cavity be thicker at the heel portion than at the other portions, and for this
feature the examiner looks to Desma-Werke, concluding that it would have been obvious
to modify the Makovski footwear by providing a thicker heel cavity, as disclosed in the
secondary reference (Answer, page 5).
The appellants point to the unidentified broken line visible in Figure 3 as support for
their argument that the Makovski groove extends entirely through the mold insert, thus
dividing it into two parts, whereupon neither it nor the cavity it creates extend continuously
from the toe region to the heel region. They also urge that it would not
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Last modified: November 3, 2007