Appeal No. 2001-0180
Application No. 08/887,421
the inventor as long as some motivation or suggestion to
combine them is provided by the prior art taken as a whole.
In re Beattie, 974 F.2d 1309, 1312, 24 USPQ2d 1040, 1042 (Fed.
Cir. 1992). Curcio and the officially noticed facts provide
the requisite motivation or suggestion. The functional
recitations associated with the grommet means in claim 17 are
merely statements of intended use. It is not apparent, nor 2
has the appellant cogently explained or established, why
grommets added to the front and rear ends of the Curcio raft
would not be inherently capable of such use. In this regard,
claim 17 is directed to the structure of a vehicle flood
rescue raft, not a method of using such structure. As so
modified, the Curcio raft responds fully to the raft structure
set forth in the claim.
Accordingly, we shall sustain the standing 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) rejection of claim 17, and claims 1, 2, 4 through 6
and 8 which stand or fall therewith, as being unpatentable
2The definition of the “means” limitation at issue in
terms of the structural modifier “grommet” forestalls any
argument that the limitation is a means-plus-function
recitation which must be construed under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
sixth paragraph.
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007