Appeal No. 2006-0320
Application No. 10/293,833
above-noted rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) will not be
sustained. Our reasons follow.
The examiner’s basic position concerning the rejection of
claims 10 through 27 is set forth on pages 4-10 of the answer.3
For argument sake, in considering the examiner’s obviousness
rejection of the appealed claims, we have made the assumption
that the examiner has correctly determined that Martin and Gibson
are analogous prior art. However, after a consideration of the
collective teachings of the applied patents and the AAPA, we
must agree with appellant that there is no reasonable teaching,
suggestion or motivation in the AAPA or either of Martin and
Gibson, considered individually or collectively, for making the
particular combination asserted by the examiner. In the final
3 Although the examiner has determined that the AAPA “lacks
a valve as claimed” (answer, page 4), we note that the claims on
appeal do not actually recite a gas valve or gas valve assembly
associated with or forming a part of the shock absorber assembly
defined therein. The claims on appeal merely recite some
structure having a first portion mounted within a threaded
opening of the shock absorber body and being formed of a first
non-metallic material, and a second portion formed of a second
non-metallic material less rigid than the first material and
comprising a plug and a seal interconnected by a connecting
member.
4
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