Appeal No. 2004-1228
Application No. 09/813,088
1.132 declaration of Tom Omuhundro.) This position is without
any merit. Nothing in the actual language of appealed claim 23
precludes a replaceable handle portion as shown in Rodgors.
Also, “[t]he test for obviousness is not whether the features of
a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the
structure of the primary reference.[] Rather, the test is what
the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to
those of ordinary skill in the art.” In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,
425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
The appellant alleges that Rodgors’s thermoplastic coating
“precludes further coating of the stick with the sheath of the
present invention.” (Substitute appeal brief, page 13; 37 CFR §
1.132 declaration of Tom Omuhundro.) We do not subscribe to this
argument because the appellant and Mr. Omuhundro fail to identify
the factual basis for this conclusory statement. On this point,
it is well settled that mere lawyer’s arguments and conclusory
statements, which are unsupported by factual evidence, are
entitled to little probative value. In re Geisler, 116 F.3d
1465, 1470, 43 USPQ2d 1362, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re De
Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705, 222 USPQ 191, 196 (Fed. Cir. 1984); In
re Wood, 582 F.2d 638, 642, 199 USPQ 137, 140 (CCPA 1978); In re
Lindner, 457 F.2d 506, 508-09, 173 USPQ 356, 358 (CCPA 1972).
Regarding appealed claims 18 through 22, we agree with the
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