Appeal No. 2006-0178
Application No. 09/877,188
Christensen is described as conventional except for the steering system or suspension, there
appears to be a prima facie case for concluding that it would have been obvious to provide the
conventional snowmobile of Christensen with a conventional short frame length of the type
disclosed in Figure 8 of the admitted prior art.
For this reason, we also hereby remand this application to the examiner for the purpose of
addressing and resolving on the written record whether independent claim 104 should be rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over Christensen in view of the admitted prior art
disclosed in Figure 8 of the appellants’ drawing.
Independent claim 52 is directed to a snowmobile having the above discussed steering
position feature as well as the feature wherein a back end of the seat extends behind a rearward-
most portion of the frame. These are the only features of claim 52 which have been argued by
the appellants in their brief (see pages 58-59).
The appellants’ argument that Christensen does not disclose the steering position feature
is unpersuasive as stated earlier. While it is true that the Christensen patent does not show the
feature wherein the seat back end extends behind the rearward-most portion of the frame, it is
our view that this feature is shown in the admitted prior art snowmobile illustrated in Figure 1 of
appellants’ drawing.
Alternatively, the conventional short frame snowmobile disclosed in Figure 8 of
appellants’ drawing includes the same rearward disposition for the back of frame and the back
of seat, that is, the distance between the back of frame and back of set is zero (see reference
character M in Figure 8). Thus, for a conventional short frame snowmobile, the seat back end
extends up to, though not behind as here claimed, a rearward-most portion of the frame.
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