Appeal No. 2005-0072
Application No. 09/656,351
failed to establish a prima facie case of obviousness for the
claimed subject matter. Accordingly, we will not sustain the
examiner's rejections for essentially those reasons set forth by
appellants.
Appellants' invention is directed to a shock isolating mount
comprising a thimble having a plurality of fingers which define a
circumferential lip projecting from a stem, which allows the stem
to be snap fitted into a spacer tube of a one-piece rigid spacer.
On the other hand, Norkus, the primary reference, although
directed to a shock isolating mount, employs a tabbed washer 28
comprising a plurality of engaging fingers in the spacer tube
rather than as part of the thimble. The flaw in the examiner's
rejections is that Norkus fails to provide any teaching or
suggestion of modifying the depicted spacer and thimble such as
to result in the presently claimed thimble having projecting
fingers. Nor has the examiner cited any other prior art which
would have suggested eliminating the tabbed washer of Norkus and
replacing its function with appellants' thimble.
The examiner's citation of In re Gazda, 219 F.2d 449,
104 USPQ 400 (CCPA 1955) is tantamount to the application of a
per se rule for patentability that has been consistently rejected
by our reviewing court. The examiner has not set forth an
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