Appeal No. 2004-1016
Application No. 10/174,567
Allred may teach an operating plate and a knob integrally molded
from a plastic material for a building ventilation system, it
does not teach or suggest employing such plate and knob for
Dunlap’s intended purpose, i.e., controlling the flow of air to a
radiator from the interior of an automobile. Nor does Allred
teach or suggest that its integrally molded plate and knob useful
for a building ventilation system are equally useful for an
automobile environment. On this record, the examiner simply has
not convincingly explained why would one of ordinary skill in the
art be lured to employ the integrally molded plate and knob
taught in Allred in Dunlap’s automobile, given the inability to
control the flow of air to a radiator from the interior of the
automobile during the operation of the automobile and given the
space and temperature constraints between a radiator and an
automobile bumper impeding the use of the integrally molded plate
and knob of the type described in Allred. It follows that the
examiner’s decision rejecting claims 4 and 7 under 35 U.S.C. §
103 is reversed.
As evidence of obviousness of the subject matter defined by
claims 8 through 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner relies on
the combined disclosures of Dunlap, Allred and Inagawa. We
initially reverse the examiner’s rejection of claims 8, 12 and 15
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