Appeal No. 2003-0192
Application No. 08/871,300
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time
of appellant's invention to modify the APA "by forming the clamp
halves as having spaced, central portions having concave walls,
as taught by Goetz, in order to increase the clamping ability of
the clamp to include different geometric members including
rectangular bars and cylindrical rods" (answer, page 4).
While when read literally it would appear the examiner is
suggesting a modification of the actual clamping jaws of the
clamp (10) engaging and gripping guide rail (90) of "Prior Art"
Figure 1, we understand the examiner's position to be that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
modify the slot of the clamp seen in Figure 1 of the application
(the APA) to include spaced, centrally located portions having
concave walls, as taught by Goetz '379.
Having reviewed and evaluated the applied prior art
reference (Goetz '379) and the APA, we are of the opinion that
the examiner's position regarding the purported obviousness of
claims 20 through 22 on appeal represents a classic case of the
examiner using impermissible hindsight derived from appellant's
own disclosure in an attempt to reconstruct appellant's claimed
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