Appeal No. 2004-1195
Application No. 09/766,165
impact, the two parameters used to define the critical ratio.
Hence, it is reasonable to conclude that the ball of Weiss,
having substantially the same rebound characteristics as a ball
without the inflation mechanism, would also have substantially
the same minimum critical ratio.
We now turn to the examiner's § 103 rejection of claims 3-7,
10-17, 22, 23 and 32 over Weiss. As noted above, we find that
Figure 1 of Weiss fairly suggests the basketball of separately
argued claims 3-6 and the soccer ball of claim 7. Also, Weiss
discloses that "a preferred embodiment of the invention is a
spherical ball" (column 1, lines 56-57). As for the specific
rebound distance recited in claim 10, appellants' specification
discloses that "it has been found that a basketball generally
must rebound to a height of between fifty and fifty-six inches
overall to be acceptable, although individual preferred rebound
height may vary from player to player" (page 8, first paragraph).
Manifestly, to the extent that the claimed rebound distance of
50-57 inches is conventional in the art, it would have been
obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to design the
Weiss ball to exhibit such a rebound distance. Moreover, it
would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to
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