Appeal No. 2002-1163
Application 09/393,374
adjacent the golf ball to be struck and remain standing in
striking position without external support so that the user may
view alignment of the putter face with respect to the cup, the
ball and topography of the green from positions removed from the
location of the putter. Claims 1 and 6 are representative of the
subject matter on appeal and a copy of those claims, as they
appear in the Appendix to appellant’s brief, is attached to this
decision.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the
examiner as evidence of obviousness of the claimed subject matter
are:
Richilano 4,173,343 Nov. 6, 1979
Evans 5,282,622 Feb. 1, 1994
Hannon et al. (Hannon) 5,290,035 Mar. 1, 1994
Turner 5,855,525 Jan. 5, 1999
Claims 1 through 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Evans in view of Turner, Richilano and
Hannon. According to the examiner (answer, pages 4-5), Evans
addresses a self standing putter substantially as claimed except
that this patent does not show or disclose the specific
limitations for putter head weight, shaft weight, and grip
2
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