Appeal No. 1999-2033 Page 6
Application No. 08/737,928
anticipated by Reach. Thus, we cannot sustain the examiner’s rejection of independent
claim 12, or claims 13 and 22-24 which depend from claim 12, under 35 U.S.C. § 102.
The obviousness rejection
3
The 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claims 15, 19 and 25-31 rests in part on the
examiner's finding that Reach discloses at least one weight which is “non-removably
connected to said housing.” The above discussed lack of support in Reach for this finding
fatally taints the examiner's conclusion that the differences between the subject matter
recited in claims 15, 19 and 25-31 and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a
4
whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having
ordinary skill in the art. It follows that we shall also not sustain the examiner’s rejection of
these claims as being unpatentable over Reach.
The indefiniteness rejection
The examiner’s basis for rejecting claims 17 and 18 as being indefinite is that “said
cavity of said housing” lacks proper antecedent basis, the only previously recited “cavity”
being an open cavity in the body. As appellants have not contested the merits of this
3Claims 15, 19 and 25 depend from claim 12, and thus incorporate the limitation that the weight be
“non-removably connected” to the housing, and claims 26-31 recite a plurality of housings having at least
one weight “non-removably connected” thereto.
4We also find no suggestion in Reach to connect the weights or slugs in a non-removable manner
to the plate 30. In fact, such a modification would appear to diminish the versatility of the device, a
significant feature of Reach’s invention.
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