Appeal No. 2002-1198
Application 09/349,306
from viewing Figures 1 and 2 of White, this patent teaches that
the golfer is in a conventional stance facing perpendicular to
the ball roll path when executing a chip shot and in a posture
with head and shoulders bent downwardly toward the ball, not
“standing in a fully erect posture and facing a target golf
hole,” as required in claim 1 on appeal.
As for Gidney, this patent addresses a golf putter (Fig. 5b)
that may have an elongate shaft (570) and two gripping areas
(550, 560), wherein the club is used by a golfer standing in an
erect posture during putting and in a stance facing the target
golf hole. The ball striking face (118) of the club head may be
provided with a loft of between 0 and 10 degrees (col. 4, lines
56-57). However, as urged by appellant (brief, pages 5-6), it
does not appear that the club of Gidney (Fig. 5b) is configured
as required in claim 1 on appeal, i.e., “with a golf club head
disposed at a substantially one hundred degree angle relative to
said elongate shaft . . . so that said shaft is positioned at an
angle of about ten degrees relative to an imaginary line that is
perpendicular to a putting surface.”
The examiner has asserted that it would have been obvious to
one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention
was made “to have utilized the teachings as taught by White and
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