Appeal No. 2004-1917 Page 10
Application No. 09/853,096
problem to be solved is enhancing safety by providing a retroreflective layer to an article
to be worn by a person to increase visibility.
Anello's novelty or toy item is not limited to being just a toy intended to be played
with indoors. Anello specifically teaches that his novelty or toy item can be coiled
around the user's wrist so as to be a novel bracelet. As a bracelet, Anello's novelty or
toy item is an article intended to be worn by a person. As such, it is our conclusion that
it would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person of ordinary
skill in the art to have modified Anello's novelty or toy item by providing a retroreflective
layer thereto to increase visibility as suggested and taught by either Richards or
Nestegard. The motivation for this change coming from the nature of the problem to be
solved and the teachings of the applied prior art, not from hindsight knowledge derived
from the appellant's own disclosure.
For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the examiner to reject claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is affirmed.
The decision of the examiner to reject claims 2 to 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is
also affirmed since the appellant has not argued separately the patentability of any
particular claim apart from the others, thus allowing claims 2 to 11 to fall with claim 1
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