Appeal No. 2004-1992
Application No. 10/223,982
First, the examiner has provided no convincing motivation
for the proposed combination. In this regard, the examiner’s
stated rationale that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to combine the references in the
proposed manner “in order to provide a contrived structure”
(answer, page 2) does not suffice. On this basis alone, the
rejection cannot be sustained.
Second, the decorative bow of Ramirez and the garland of
Ruff have little in common aside from the circumstance that they
both broadly serve a decorative function. More specifically, the
bow of Ramirez is for decorating a gift package or the like,
whereas the garland of Ruff is for decorating a Christmas tree or
a room. There is simply no suggestion in either reference, or
need in view of the divergent uses and objectives of the
references, for their combination.
Third, the zigzag strands of Ramirez are not fixed rigidly
in a single position but are allowed to curve and move in
response to different placement of the bow (column 2, lines 38-
41), whereas the garland of Ruff is specifically designed to be
stiff and without any spring back characteristics (column 2,
lines 27-32). This stiffness of Ruff’s overall device would act
as a disincentive to the combination proposed by the examiner.
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