Appeal No. 2002-0245 Page 6
Application No. 09/202,412
For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 16
to 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Eckert in view of Sol is
reversed.
The obviousness rejection based on Eckert and Ammon
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 16 to 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Eckert in view of Ammon.
In this rejection, the examiner ascertained (answer, p. 4) that Eckert does not
specifically teach determining a variable center of gravity. The examiner then
determined (answer, p. 6) that it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art at the
time of the invention to modify the system of Eckert "by incorporating the features from
the method of Ammon" because such modification will improve the behavior of the
vehicle as suggested by Ammon.
The appellants argue (brief, pp. 11-12; reply brief, pp.3-4) that Ammon does not
teach or suggest determining a variable center of gravity as recited in claim 16 and
therefore the combined teachings of Eckert and Ammon would not have arrived at the
subject matter of claim 16. We agree.
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