Appeal No. 2006-1474
Application 10/219,095
in claim 15 addressing the requirement of a head portion and razor blade having “a
combined width that is less than or equal to half the width of at least some portion of the
handle,” does not appear to be present in the application as originally filed. Thus, we
remand the application to the examiner to consider whether a rejection of the pending
claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, for lack of written description support would
be appropriate.
2. As a further issue, we are struck by the cumulative nature of the prior art relied upon
by the examiner in the rejection of the claims on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). More
specifically, it is the examiner’s reliance on White, or Holly, or Brody, or Beebe in the new
final rejection of March 26, 2004 that is of concern. These patents seem to show the same
basic subject matter of an enlarged gripping aid or handle for use with conventionally sized
utensils such as a toothbrush, knife, fork, spoon, or the like to provide easier use of such
implements by a person with a manual or digital disability, such as a victim of rheumatoid
arthritis. Of the four alternatively applied patents, only White and Holly refer to the disclosed
structures therein as being implement handles or handle portions. Only Holly actually gives
a preferred size for the handle portion (see Holly, col. 2, lines 55-62). It appears that if a
handle portion of the preferred size in Holly were to be incorporated in Heinrich to allow use
of a razor like that in Heinrich by a person with a manual or digital disability, such as a victim
of rheumatoid arthritis, the resulting razor would fully meet the relative size requirements of
the claims presently on appeal. As noted in MPEP § 706.02, prior art rejections should
ordinarily be confined strictly to the best available prior art and merely cumulative rejections
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