Appeal No. 2003-1359 8
Application No. 09/285,260
Hence, appellants’ argument (main brief, page 9) in this regard with respect to claim 24
also is well taken, thereby providing an additional basis for not sustaining the anticipation
rejection of claims 24 and 28 based on Robinson.
The anticipation rejection based on Phillips
In this rejection, the examiner finds correspondence between lower foot plate 22 of
Phillips and the claimed first spring element comprising at least one forefoot leaf spring,
correspondence between upper ankle plate 24 of Phillips and the claimed second spring
element located at least in part in the heel region, and correspondence between foam
block 26 of Phillips and the adapting device of claim 1 and means for changing of claim
24. Be that as it may, we perceive nothing in Phillips that can reasonably be considered
as satisfying the requirements of the last paragraphs of claims 1 and 24 regarding
changing the “spring rigidity” and “bending resistance” of the forefoot leaf spring in
response to a load being placed on the artificial foot which causes flexing of the second
spring element. More particularly, nothing in Phillips indicates that flexing of foam block
24 directly results in a physical change in element 14 to effect a change in its
characteristic resistance to bending in response to a load being placed on the artificial foot
which causes flexing of the second spring element. For this reason, the examiner’s
anticipation rejection based on Phillips cannot be sustained.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007