Appeal No. 2003-0700
Application 09/547,578
II. The 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 24 through 27 as
being unpatentable over Drake in view of Watts
As implicitly conceded by the examiner (see pages 3 and 4 in
the final rejection), Drake does not respond to the limitation in
independent claim 24 requiring a fin pitch control mechanism
structured and arranged so that a selected amount of rotation of
the second rotatable member selects the water depth. Although
the Drake lure includes a second rotatable member in the form of
set screw 19, selected rotation of the set screw does not select
the water depth of the lure. The examiner’s reliance on Watts to
overcome this deficiency is not well founded.
Watts pertains to a fishing lure “of the spinning type in
which the direction of rotation of the lure can be changed at
will, without untying the lure from a line and without
dismantling the lure” (column 1, lines 49 through 52). The lure
comprises a body 1 composed of relatively rotatable front and
rear parts 7 and 8 having respective pairs of diametrically
opposed apertures 11 and 12 in register with one another, and a
pair of fins 2 mounted within registered apertures. Rotation of
the lure body parts relative to one another disposes the fins in
either of two inclinations which respectively foster right-handed
and left-handed spinning of the lure as it moves through the
water.
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