Appeal No. 2001-0180
Application No. 08/887,421
As indicated above, the examiner has taken official
notice
of the old and conventional practice of providing rafts with
grommets to fasten or tether them in place. This notice is
reasonable on its face, and to the extent it has been
challenged by the appellants in the main brief (see page 5),
the examiner has cited three supporting prior art references
in the answer (see the paragraph bridging pages 6 and 7).
Inasmuch as the appellants have not contested the legitimacy
of this supporting evidence in their reply brief, we accept
the officially notice facts at face value.
In proposing to combine Curcio and the officially noticed
practice of providing rafts with grommets, the examiner
concludes (see pages 4 and 5 in the answer) that it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add
grommets to the front and rear ends of the Curcio raft to
permit it to be anchored or tethered it to a stationary
object.
The appellants traverse this conclusion (see pages 4
through 7 in the main brief and pages 1 and 2 in the reply
brief), arguing that the applied prior art would not have
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