Appeal No. 1999-1112
Application No. 08/683,705
non-electronic stringed instruments such as guitars, violins, cellos, basses, pianos and others which may
use reeds. While appellants recite that “[t]his list is not meant to be exhaustive and no limitation on the
use of the invention is to be implied” [specification-page 28], appellants, by their argument, have,
indeed, limited the claimed invention to specifically exclude all electronic/electric musical instruments
and we so hold.
Moving on, now that we have decided, as urged by appellants, that the instant claimed invention
does, indeed, preclude electronic/electric musical instruments, we will summarily reverse the rejections
of the instant claims which rely on the Groupp, Holland and Maloney references because these
references are clearly directed to electric/electronic musical instruments. Fricke is directed to a music
synthesizer and Eland to a microphone suppression system. Thus, these references, also, fail to teach
an “acoustic musical instrument,” as claimed.
Since Fishman is directed to a piezoelectric transducer for a stringed musical instrument, but not to
the instrument itself, the combination of Fishman with any of the foregoing references would not supply
the deficiency of the primary references with regard to supplying an “acoustic musical instrument,” as
claimed.
Therefore, we will not sustain the rejection of claims 1-8 under either 35 U.S.C. 102(b) or
35 U.S.C. 103 based, in whole or in part, on any one of Holland, Groupp, Eland, Fricke or Maloney.
Accordingly, we turn our attention to the rejection of claims 1 and 3-6 under 35 U.S.C. 102(b) as
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