Appeal No. 2002-2208 Page 7
Application No. 09/543,989
van den Broek’s disclosure of a modified wall panel 924 as shown in Figure 2.
According to van den Broek (column 6, lines 40-47),
[s]ince only a single wall is provided for each panel 92 the
panels are flexible to a certain degree and can be
assembled together as shown in FIG. 2 to provide a curved
wall structure. By using the 9-inch wide panels 92 it is
possible to construct a curved wall having a radius of
approximately 17 feet without placing any undue stress on
the panel during cold bending of the panel.
From our perspective, one of ordinary skill in the art would have inferred from van den
Broek’s characterization of the modified panel 92, which differs from the panel 10 in
that the wall on one surface is eliminated between the center groove 94 and the
transverse reinforcing walls 96 and 98, as being “flexible to a certain degree” by virtue
of its single wall structure that the panel 10 is not flexible.
Having determined that van den Broek lacks disclosure, either expressly or
under principles of inherency, that the panels 10 relied upon by the examiner possess
the resiliency called for in claim 25, we shall not sustain the examiner’s rejection of
4 In that the examiner has referred only to the panel 10 and has not relied on the modified panel
92 in rejecting claims 25-27, our review of this rejection is limited only to determining whether the panel 10
anticipates appellant’s claimed subject matter. In the event of further prosecution, however, the examiner
may wish to consider whether the subject matter of claim 25 and some of the claims depending therefrom
is anticipated by the modified panel 92.
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