Appeal No. 2003-0348
Application 09/567,145
board. In fact, Oehrlein specifically states that his invention
has nothing to do with sound boards [column 3, lines 5-8]. We
can find no useful teaching in Oehrlein which is related to the
sound board of the claimed invention on appeal before us.
Although appellant is correct that the fibers in Besnainou are
not perpendicular, we find Besnainou to be irrelevant here
because it is not directed to the use of wood layers in making
the sound board of a guitar. Besnainou relates to a bow
instrument such as a violin, viola and cello, and Besnainou
relates to a sound board made from a composite material rather
than wood. Thus, there can be no perpendicular wood grains in
the layers of Besnainou because there is no wood in Besnainou.
Although the examiner’s rejection clearly represents an attempt
to reconstruct the claimed invention in hindsight, the fact of
the matter is that the claimed invention has not been achieved
even in hindsight. It is interesting to note the examiner’s
statement that the combination of the references reads on the
claims. This “fact” does not establish obviousness. The fact
that all the elements of the claimed invention can be separately
found in a plurality of references does not, by itself, establish
obviousness. The examiner must also provide a convincing
rationale as to why the artisan would have found it obvious to
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