Appeal No. 2006-1014
Application No. 10/255,081
of the ribs will not have the indentations. Those ribs without
the rigidity lowering indentations 20A or 20B will have a higher
rigidity than those with the indentations. Thus, in this
embodiment of Suzuki’s Figure 4, we find that high and low
rigidity portions satisfying Appellants’ definitions are present
in the impact-absorbing structure. Additionally, even if all
the ribs have indentations 20A and 20B, the Suzuki disclosure,
as a whole, reflects that the ribs have differing rigidities.
Regarding the Figure 4 embodiment, Suzuki indicates at column 4,
lines 31-37, that the embodiment is structured so that the
lateral ribs (the middle portion of the impact-absorbing
component) undergo bending deformation (i.e., ductile
deformation) and absorb the impact energy more efficiently.
This teaching necessarily implies that the lateral ribs have a
lower-rigidity than other ribs in this embodiment because the
lateral rib energy absorption is determined to be “more
efficient” relative to the energy absorption of the other ribs.
In attempting to rebut the Examiner’s finding that the
honeycomb lattice for front rib section 12 shown in Figure 6 is
at a higher rigidity due to its structure than the edge rib
section 13, Appellants argue that both front ribs (12) and edge
ribs (13) may have a honeycomb structure, so that there is no
6
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