Appeal No. 2001-2382 Page 9
Application No. 09/376,461
the appellant’s unanswered challenge to the examiner to produce evidence that it was
known to manufacture such devices of metal without seams.
It therefore is our conclusion that the combined teachings of DeBlock, Hoy and
Streiter fail to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the subject
matter recited in claim 1, and we will not sustain this rejection.
Claims 2-4 and 6-9 stand rejected as being unpatentable over DeBlock in view of
Hoy, Streiter and Blackmon. Claim 2 adds to claim 1 the requirement that the metal
flashing have a skirt formed with at least one rib, and independent claim 6 recites a
metal flashing having a skirt formed with at least one strengthening anomaly. The
examiner looks to Blackmon for a teaching of providing ribs extending outwardly to
reinforce a plate, concluding that it would have been obvious to provide the flashing of
DeBlock, as modified by Hoy and Streiter, with such a feature. The appellant argues
that Blackmon is non-analogous art, a conclusion with which we agree.
The test for analogous art is first whether the art is within the field of the
inventor's endeavor and, if not, whether it is reasonably pertinent to the problem with
which the inventor was involved. See In re Wood, 599 F.2d 1032, 1036, 202 USPQ
171, 174 (CCPA 1979). A reference is reasonably pertinent if, even though it may be in
a different field of endeavor, it logically would have commended itself to an inventor's
attention in considering his problem because of the matter with which it deals. See In
re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 659, 23 USPQ2d 1058, 1061 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
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