Appeal No. 2003-0458
Application No. 09/894,738
As recognized by the examiner, appealed independent claim 1
distinguishes over Grubbs by virtue of, inter alia, the claim
limitation “the slot extending completely across the driver head
so as to be open on opposite sides.” In patentee’s screw eye
driving and removing device, the slot is U-shaped as shown in
Figure 6 and as disclosed in the paragraph bridging columns 3 and
4. Concerning this distinction, the examiner concludes that:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art at the time the invention was made to have
modified Grubbs by forming the slot completely through
the driver head as taught by Womack in order to easily
engage a workpiece and to readily accept a variety of
different sized workpieces [answer, page 3].
We cannot agree with this conclusion.
Like the appellant, we consider the applied prior art to
contain no teaching or suggestion for combining the Grubbs and
Womack references in the above quoted manner proposed by the
examiner. In the examiner’s view, an artisan with ordinary skill
would have been motivated to so combine these references “in
order to easily engage a workpiece and to readily accept a
variety of different sized workpieces” (Id.). However, Womack
contains utterly no teaching of such desiderata as “to easily
engage a workpiece” or “to readily accept a variety of different
sized workpieces.” Similarly, Grubbs contains no disclosure
which would support a determination that his device possesses any
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