Appeal No. 2004-1195
Application No. 09/766,165
Rather, we find ourselves in agreement with the following
reasoning set forth at page 7 of the Examiner's Answer:
However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to extend the teachings of Adair to
other sport balls and their respective impact surfaces
(baseball and bat, tennis ball and racket or floor and
basketball and floor). Adair is concerned with the
rebound characteristics of a sport ball when contacting
an impact surface. These teachings would also be
important to various other sports where a ball is
contacting a surface. Regarding the "critical ratio",
Adair measures the half period of component vibration
and the duration of ball's impact. To take these
numbers and calculate appellant's [sic] "critical
ratio" would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art in order to provide a quick table for
reference purposes. The fact that other forces (force
of the bat) occur in the game of baseball that do not
occur in the game of basketball would obviously be
compensated for when applying the teachings of Adair to
measure the impacts of a basketball with the floor.
As a final point with respect to the § 103 rejections,
appellants base no argument upon objective evidence of
nonobviousness, such as unexpected results.
In conclusion, based on the foregoing, the examiner's
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, is reversed,
whereas the examiner's rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) and
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are sustained. Accordingly, the examiner's
decision rejecting the appealed claims is affirmed.
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