Appeal No. 2005-2108 Page 6
Application No. 10/360,982
Curnutt does not disclose a strut assembly having a suspension damper having a
substantially vertically-oriented tube as recited in the claims under appeal.3
With regard to this difference, the examiner determined (answer, p. 4) that:
It is inherent to orient the damper [of Curnutt] in a substantially vertical position
whereby the disk and spring will move toward the bottom end in response to its
own weight and is known in the art that damper can be used in various positions.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have utilized the
damper of Curnutt in substantially vertical positioning in order to vary the
effective resistance to the fluid flow from one side of the piston to the other side
so as to absorbs shocks.
The appellants argue that it would not have been obvious at the time the
invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have modified
Curnutt's shock absorber to be substantially vertically-oriented. We agree. Curnutt's
shock absorber is horizontally-oriented in order to function as an inertia-responsive
shock absorber for absorbing rear wheel shocks of a motorcycle. As such, there is no
reason why a person having ordinary skill in the art would have rotated Curnutt's shock
absorber to be vertically-oriented. The examiner's determination of obviousness has
3After the scope and content of the prior art are determined, the differences
between the prior art and the claims at issue are to be ascertained. Graham v. John
Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17-18, 148 USPQ 459, 467 (1966).
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