Appeal No. 1998-3081
Application No. 08/587,292
The examiner has, in our view, set forth a prima facie case of obviousness, in the final
rejection at pages 2-3, as incorporated into the answer, with respect to the invention as
recited in claim 1. Appellant groups the claims as a single group and does not separately
argue the patentability of individual claims. (See brief at page 3.) Therefore, we limit our
review to independent claim 1. The examiner maintains that Andres teaches the shock
sensor as recited, but does not disclose the twisted contact. (See final rejection at page
2.) We agree with the examiner. The examiner maintains that “[a]lthough Andres and/or
Jenkins may not explicitly suggest the combination of their teachings, Jenkins nevertheless
teaches a known solution, twisting the contacts, to a known problem, contact bounce, in
general in switches of all kinds and types that the skilled artisan would have readily
recognized as beneficial to a shock sensor or acceleration switch as taught by Andres.”
(See answer at page 3.) We agree with the examiner.
Appellant argues that the examiner agreed during the telephonic interview on
March 4, 1998 that the references themselves do not expressly or impliedly suggest the
combination. (See brief at page 4.) First, this statement is not in the administrative record
beyond the above statement by the examiner. Therefore, we cannot comment on any oral
statements by the examiner. We agree with the examiner’s statement that the references
do not expressly state that these two references should be combined, but the teachings of
Andres clearly recognize the problem of bounce in the shock switches. Therefore, it would
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007