Appeal No. 2005-0096
Application No. 09/765,098
provide functional durability under the stress of use” (answer,
page 4).
Obviousness cannot be established by combining the teachings
of the prior art to produce the claimed invention absent some
teaching or suggestion supporting the combination. In re Fritch,
972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
The mere fact that the prior art may be modified in the manner
proposed by an examiner does not make the modification obvious
unless the prior art suggested the desirability of the
modification. Id. In the present case, the combined teachings
of Geschwender, Snyder and Spease would not have suggested the
combination proposed by the examiner.
To begin with, although Snyder fairly suggests that the ends
of male-type members (rod members 35) can be chamfered to
facilitate insertion into female-type members (sockets 14), claim
1 requires that the chamfered ends be on the U-shaped frame
portions which, within the context of the claim, are female-type
members adapted to mate with male-type members in the form of the
L-shaped connectors that telescopically fit “into” the chamfered
ends of the U-shaped frame portions. Hence, the examiner’s
reasoning that it would have been obvious in view of Snyder to
provide chamfered ends on Geschwender’s U-shaped frame portions
5
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