Appeal No. 2006-0651
Application 10/050,061
flexures (see column 5, lines 6-10). The isolators also include
fluid damping structure, and a coil spring which can be adjusted
or tuned to optimize the isolator for performance along one
degree of freedom (see column 6, lines 28-36; column 7, lines 19-
21; and column 9, lines 24-27). In Cunningham’s words, “the
deterministic design of the isolators allows calculation to
establish the required amount of damping and the required
stiffness of the elastic [isolator] members when given the force,
direction of force, frequency range, amplitudes and directions of
vibrations to be expected” (column 8, lines 43-48).
The appellant does not dispute that it would have been
obvious to utilize Cunningham’s isolators to implement Griffin’s
broadly disclosed hexapod suspension, or that such isolators are
“configured to be tuned” as recited in parent claims 5 and 10.2
The appellant does contend, however, that the rejection of claims
8 and 13 is unsound because the combined teachings of Griffin and
Cunningham would not have suggested a system meeting the
limitations in these claims, and in parent claims 1 and 5,
pertaining to the coupling of each isolator second end to the
structure at a predetermined or particular location to reduce
2 Indeed, the appellant’s specification (see page 2) cites Cunningham
for its disclosure of such tunable isolators.
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