Appeal No. 2001-2495
Application No. 09/110,876
appellant’s argument at page 11 of the principal brief that “the
artisan would recognize immediately that the two tread patterns
of the prior art [JP ‘604 and Boileau] are mutually exclusive
with each other” (second paragraph), we are in agreement with the
examiner’s rationale that “Boileau’s inclusion of both a block
pattern and a rib pattern in his disclosure suggests to one of
ordinary skill in the art that Boileau’s teaching to use the
stepped configuration to obtain the desired high cut out
percentage is applicable to a wide variety of tread patterns
which like the tread pattern of Japanese ‘604 is to be used in
winter conditions.” (page 20 of answer, second paragraph).
Appellant has not explained why Boileau’s failure to depict a
tread pattern with a main groove along the circumferential
direction of the tire would have dissuaded one of ordinary skill
in the art to apply the stepped configuration to the wall surface
of the block portions of JP ‘604.
In the interest of avoiding redundancy, we will not further
comment on the examiner’s separate rejections of claims 6-8 and
11, and claim 14, which rejections we incorporate herein.
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