Appeal No. 1998-3423 Page 4
Application No. 08/584,962
feature of the invention would be destroyed. Even acknowledging that it was known in the
art at the time of the appellants’ invention to fold the handles of this type of tool in opposite
directions to obtain other advantages, as explicitly is taught by Schmidt, the fact that the
proposed modification would nullify a basic feature of the Frazer invention would have
operated as a disincentive for one of ordinary skill in the art to do so.
Independent claims 1 and 16 each contain the requirement that the handles of the
device be rotatable in opposite directions between nested positions wherein they are
coplanar with the two jaws and adjacent thereto and deployed positions wherein they are
coplanar with the two jaws and remote therefrom. On the basis of the reasoning set forth
above, it is our view that the required suggestion to combine the references in such a
manner as to render the claimed subject matter obvious is lacking. This being the case, it
is our opinion that the combined teachings of Frazer and Newton, and Frazer and Schmidt,
fail to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the subject matter recited
in independent claims 1 and 16. We therefore will not sustain any of the rejections,
considering that Pullman, which was additionally cited against claim 14, fails to overcome
the deficiency in the other references.
CONCLUSION
Our decision of September 5, 2000, hereby is modified in the following manner:
(1) None of the rejections are sustained.
(2) The decision of the examiner is reversed.
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