Appeal No. 2001-1343 Application No. 08/965,818 claims fails to account for the pressure activated valve in Thompson’s Figure 4 embodiment. Thus, the combined teachings of Bernard and Thompson establish a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to the subject matter recited in representative claim 77. The appellant’s declaration evidence of non-obviousness purportedly shows that the claimed invention was appreciated by others for its inventive aspects, solved a long-felt need in the art, and was copied by competitors (see pages 18 and 19 in the brief). The Francis declaration pertains to an innovation award presented to the appellant by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) at the Offshore Technology Conference held May 3-6, 1999 in Houston, Texas. The declaration establishes that the award was based in large part on the benefits of the claimed torque wrench system when used in deepwater drilling applications; however, neither representative claim 77 nor any other appealed claim is limited to such applications. Moreover, to the extent that the award and the related ASME press release (copy appended to the declaration as Exhibit A) extol the general purpose speed 13Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007