Appeal No. 2001-0669
Application No. 09/198,637
Moreover, Samuels’ disclosure at column 2, lines 54-56, that the
sleeves thereof are made in their entirety of stretchable
elastic material which, because of their inherent resiliency,
can be used with a plurality of different size casts, suggests
to us that sleeve 10 also would not necessarily loosely fit over
the hand covering, wrist and lower sleeve area of a person of,
for example, small stature. In this regard, while it is
possible that the sleeve of Samuels may function to loosely
surround portions of a hand, wrist and forearm in the manner
called for in claim 1, the mere fact that a certain thing may
result from a given set of circumstances is not sufficient to
establish inherency. In re Oelrich, 666 F.2d 578, 581, 212 USPQ
323, 326 (CCPA 1981).
In short, the disclosure of Samuels does not provide an
adequate factual basis to establish that the natural result
flowing from following the teachings of that reference would be
a wrist cover that is adapted to be positioned loosely over a
portion of a user’s hand covering, wrist and lower sleeve area,
as now claimed. Accordingly, we cannot sustain the examiner’s
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