Appeal No. 2002-0538
Application 09/220,468
of claims 1, 14 and 21 is rife with speculation and unfounded
assumptions having no factual support in the fair teachings of
Uehling. Because these evidentiary insufficiencies find no cure
in Cureton, the combined teachings of the two references do not
warrant a conclusion that the differences between the subject
matter recited in claims 1, 14 and 21 and the prior art are such
that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the
time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in
the art.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) rejection of claims 1, 14 and 21, and dependent claims
2, 6 through 9 and 15 through 19, as being unpatentable over
Uehling in view of Cureton.
As Coffinberry does not overcome the deficiencies of the
Uehling-Cureton combination with respect to the subject matter
recited in claim 1, we also shall not sustain the standing 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 3 through 5, which depend
ultimately from claim 1, as being unpatentable over Uehling in
view of Cureton and Coffinberry.
At issue in the rejection of independent claim 10 are the
limitations therein relating to the “opening.” As indicated
above, claim 10 requires an opening, rather than a groove, in the
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