Appeal No. 2003-1119
Application 09/756,588
position. Accordingly, we will also sustain the examiner’s
rejection of claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
The next rejection for our review is that of claims 5
through 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Meengs in view of Kearns. In this instance, the examiner
recognizes that Meengs does not teach the use of elastic yarns in
the selvage makeup of the outer cuff or guard sleeve of the sock
therein and concludes, based on the teachings of several rounds
of elastic yarn (E) in the decorative edge or cuff (15) of the
sock in Kearns (Fig. 4), that it would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art at the time of appellant’s invention
to provide the selvage area of the outer cuff (5) of Meengs with
elastic yarns as shown in Kearns in order to increase the
elasticity of the outer cuff portion and thereby maintain the
outer cuff taut against the remainder of the sock (final
rejection, page 3).
While appellant’s brief (pages 5-7) mentions certain case
law regarding obviousness and appears to broadly urge that there
is no suggestion as to the desirability of any modification of
the references to describe the present invention, we find no
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