Appeal No. 2004-2346 Page 9
Application No. 09/876,519
Claims 16-18 and 20 all require a seal between the housing and the exterior
surface of the vehicle roof, a feature which is not disclosed by Staser. To overcome this
deficiency, the examiner points to the teaching in Pokorney of permitting electrical
communication between the interior of a rear-mounted light bar 10 and the means for
controllably supplying power to the light heads and alley lights thereon by the provision
of one or more holes in the vehicle roof and the passage of electrical cables through
grommets installed in these holes in a water-tight manner. This teaching of Pokorney,
at best, might have suggested the passage of electrical cables from within the air dam
housing of Staser to the vehicle interior in a water-tight manner through grommets. Like
appellants (brief, page 8), we fail to appreciate how such a modification of Staser would
necessarily result in a seal between the housing and the exterior surface of the vehicle
roof. The examiner’s conclusion that it would have been “obvious to provide [a seal] at
the lower flanges of the housing of Staser et al. in order to prevent water degradation of
the motor 64 [sic. 62] and controller 76, both electrical devices subject to water
damage” (answer, page 6) does not logically follow from the combined teachings of
Staser, Rich and Pokorney. We thus cannot sustain the rejection of claims 16-18 and
20.
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