Appeal No. 2004-0919 Page 13
Application No. 09/842,607
The appellants argue (brief, pp. 7-9) that the applied prior art does not suggest
the claimed subject matter of claims 1 to 10, 12, 13, 27 and 28. We agree.
Claims 1 to 10, 12, 13, 27 and 28 require the golf ball to have a mufti-layer cover
assembly including an inner cover layer disposed on a core layer and an outer cover
layer disposed on the inner cover layer wherein at least one of the inner cover layer and
the outer cover layer includes an ionomer blend of less than 50% of a high acid
ionomer and greater than 50% of a low acid ionomer. However, these limitations are
not suggested by the applied prior art. In that regard, while Horiuchi does disclose in
example 3 a cover layer having an ionomer blend of 30% of a high acid ionomer and
70% of a low acid ionomer, Horiuchi does not provide evidence that would have led an
artisan to have modified Saito to arrive at the claimed invention. Specifically, we fail to
find any motivation in the applied prior art that would have made it obvious at the time
the invention was made to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have both retained
Saito's inner layer 10 made of a comparatively soft thermoplastic resin and to have
modified Saito's outer layer 11 (which Saito teaches is made of a hard thermoplastic
resin) to be an ionomer blend of less than 50% of a high acid ionomer and greater than
50% of a low acid ionomer. At best, the teachings of Horiuchi would have led an
artisan to have replaced both Saito's inner layer 10 and outer layer 11 with a single
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