Appeal No. 2006-0948
Application No. 10/354,756
Withoff patents or a combination thereof. (Reply
Brief, paragraph bridging pages 3 and 4).
We agree with the appellant that the examiner’s
rejection is not well founded.
In contrast to the subject matter recited in
independent claim 1, and as correctly argued by appellant,
Mossbeck discloses the use of pocketed springs in the
method of applying insulator sheets to a spring assembly
and does not fold the “outer edges of said [sheets] of
insulator material around end turns of springs of said
spring assembly.” While Withoff’s Figure 4 shows wrapping
the extended portion of an insulator sheet around a border
wire 11 and, hence, around a turn of an outermost spring
coil, the examiner does not specify how the references are
to be combined to meet the aforequoted feature of claim 1.
The examiner’s argument noted above does not specifically
address the appellant’s contentions regarding this
distinguishing claim feature. In our view, the appellant
is correct that the examiner’s proposed modification of
Mossbeck “is not even possible . . . because the individual
coil springs are pocketed, i.e. wrapped in a fabric pocket
so the end turns are not exposed.” (Brief, page 7).
In light of the above, it is apparent that the
examiner has failed to carry the initial burden of
establishing a prima facie case of obviousness. See In re
Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed.
Cir. 1992). We are compelled by this circumstance to
hereby reverse the examiner’s section 103 (a) rejection of
claims 1, 3, 14 and 15 as being unpatentable over Mossbeck
in view of Withoff.
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007