Appeal No. 2002-1488
Application No. 09/463,695
Allen and Knapp, it is apparent that the examiner has engaged in an impermissible
hindsight reconstruction of the appellants’ invention by using claim 11 as a template to
selectively pick and choose from among isolated disclosures in the prior art.
Moreover, even if the references were combined in the manner proposed by the
examiner, it is not apparent that the resulting golf club head would meet the limitation
of claim 11 requiring that the PCCP structure defines “a central axis oriented to
intersect a plane defined by a face portion of said golf club head.” In the present case,
appellants orient the central axis of the PCCP structure to intersect the plane defined
by the plane of the face portion in order to lower the rigidity of the club head in the
hitting direction (specification, page 7, lines 17-24). However, consistent with Allen’s
objective of reinforcing and stiffening the striking face of the club head and Knapp’s
disclosure at column 2, lines 6-18, that PCCP geometry results in a cylindrical shell
that is more rigid in its circumferential direction and much less rigid in its axial direction
than a conventional cylindrical shell, it reasonably appears to us that if the ordinarily
skilled artisan were to employ Knapp’s PCCP shell design in Allen as a substitute for
the reinforcing and stiffening honeycomb network thereof, said artisan would orient the
PCCP structure such that its central axis does not intersect the plane defined by the
striking face of the club head in order to take full advantage of the larger
circumferential bending rigidity that Knapp’s PCCP design provides.
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