Appeal No. 2002-0492
Application 09/348,141
reference. In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385, 1390, 163 USPQ 545, 549
(CCPA 1969). In the present case, the appellants have not
challenged, and in fact appear to acquiesce to, the examiner’s
finding that the latching of hinged legs, such as found in a
folding table, in their operative position to prevent collapse
was a generally known and conventional expedient at the time the
appellants’ invention was made. Although the examiner’s folding
table example is somewhat removed from ramps of the sort at issue
here, it is not unreasonable in cases involving relatively simple
everyday-type mechanical concepts to permit inquiry into other
areas where one of even limited technical skill would be aware
that similar problems exist. In re Heldt, 433 F.2d 808, 812, 167
USPQ 676, 679 (CCPA 1970). A person of ordinary skill in the art
would have readily appreciated, as a simple matter of common
sense, that Dudley’s unlatched leg support structure has a
certain degree of instability, and that this problem would be
diminished by a conventional leg latching mechanism of the type
alluded to by the examiner. This recognition would have
furnished the artisan with ample suggestion or motivation to
incorporate such a mechanism into the Dudley ramp, thereby
arriving at the subject matter recited in claim 16.
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