Appeal No. 2004-1408
Application No. 10/166,590
support that is incrementally adjustable in height by greater
than about 2 inches would be unusable. In re Gurley, 27 F.3d
551, 553, 31 USPQ2d 1130, 1132 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
To the contrary, Cienfuegos would have suggested to one of
ordinary skill in the art that a support having several
adjustable height positions at, e.g., about 2-inch increments
would be suitable for use as part of a home exercycle or
bicycle. Although the same adjustable support might not
comfortably accommodate the entire world population, it would
nevertheless be useful for a significant portion of the general
population. In the case of a child’s bicycle, such increments
would facilitate periodic height adjustments commensurate with
the natural growth of the child. Here, one of ordinary skill in
the art would have recognized from the teachings of the prior
art that the number of possible height positions and the
distance between the positions of adjacent heights would
necessarily affect the cost of manufacturing the device. For a
given overall length of adjustable support, the total number of
drilled holes increases as the distance between the adjacent
height positions is decreased. Thus, one of ordinary skill in
the art would have balanced the desirability of accommodating
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