Appeal No. 2003-0417
Application 09/080,207
temporary, and shows no concern that any resulting, and
presumably temporary, rotation of the air bag will be
deleterious. Indeed, Wipasuramonton does not even mention such
rotation. Thus, the rationale advanced by the examiner to
justify the proposed modification of Heinz in view of
Wipasuramonton finds no support in the fair teachings of these
references, and appears instead to stem from impermissible
hindsight. Moreover, given the differences in their
construction, it would be unduly speculative to associate a
perceived rotation problem in the air bag disclosed by
Wipasuramonton with the air bag disclosed by Heinz.
Thus, the combined teachings of Heinz and Wipasuramonton do
not justify the examiner’s conclusion that the differences
between the subject matter recited in claims 23 and 26 and the
prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have
been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person
having ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, we shall not
sustain the standing 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of independent
claims 23 and 26, and dependent claims 5 through 7, 15 through
18, 24, 25, 27 and 28, as being unpatentable over Heinz in view
of Wipasuramonton.
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