Appeal No. 2004-0200
Application No. 09/908,709
ordinary skill in the art would have appreciated the balance
between the benefits of Dessert’s clean operation and the
effectiveness of Deguchi’s internal combustion engine for
recharging electric motor batteries. Consequently, the
references, taken together, would have rendered it prima facie
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a combination
of Dessert’s pedals and Deguchi’s internal combustion engine for
recharging the electric motor batteries in Dessert’s vehicle.
The appellant argues that including an internal combustion
engine in Dessert’s vehicle would increase the weight of the
vehicle sufficiently that the engine would have to be used to
move the vehicle (brief, page 3). This argument is not
persuasive because, as pointed out by the examiner (answer,
page 5), small internal combustion engines were available at the
time of the appellant’s invention.
Moreover, the disclosure by Dessert that pedals are
effective for recharging electric motor batteries (abstract;
col. 1, line 66 - col. 2, line 2; col. 3, lines 53-58; col. 4,
lines 39-42) would have fairly suggested, to one of ordinary
skill in the art, including pedals in Deguchi’s hybrid vehicle to
help recharge the electric motor batteries.
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