Appeal No. 2002-1038
Application 09/122,022
Parsons in assessing the obviousness of the subject matter
recited in the appealed claims.
One of the shortcomings of Parsons relative to the claimed
subject matter is a lack of response to the limitation in
independent claim 1, and the corresponding limitation in
independent method claim 17, requiring the cover to be
“constructed of a material such that the diameter of the ridge
cannot stretch or expand to a size of the outer diameter of the
tube.” The examiner’s reliance on Zimmerman as being suggestive
of this feature (see pages 7 through 9 in the answer) is not well
founded. As the diameter of Zimmerman’s rubber tubular covering
A is slightly smaller than that of the handle to which it is to
be applied, the diameter of the covering, and more specifically
the diameter of its ridge or lug D, necessarily must be capable
of stretching or expanding to a size of the outer diameter of the
handle in order to allow the covering to be properly positioned
on the handle with the ridge or lug D in groove C. The examiner
offers no evidence or cogent explanation in support of the
assertion (see page 8 in the answer) that this capability would
somehow vanish once the covering is disposed on the handle. It
simply does not follow from Zimmerman’s description of the
covering as not being removable from the handle without cutting
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