Appeal No. 2006-1819 5
Application No. 10/102,445
also for preventing the jostling of wheeled vehicles crossing the flooring material on the
tapering section (col. 1, line 58 to col. 2,
line 52). The examiner concedes that Glatz fails to teach a distance between the thick end
and the thin end being at least 30 times the thickness of the thick end.
To address this difference, the examiner notes the disclosure in Glatz (col. 5, lines 24-
30) that the flooring adapter may be modified to accommodate flooring materials of varying
heights, and concludes that
It is apparent a variation or modificatio [sic, modification] to one having
ordinary skill in the art would encompass the length-to-width ratio or the
length-to-height ratio, etc. Thus, it would have been obvious to one having
ordinary skill in the art to select a ratio of the distance between the thick and
thin ends as compared to the thickness of the thick end according to the
intended use of the member and environment in which of the member is
being used. As discussed in GLATZ, his device is designed to mainly to
generate a smoother surface for walking/running pedestrians and wheeled
apparatuses. A wheeled apparatus might require a longer device giving way
to a much smoother flooring transition; whereas a runner/walker might not
require the transition device to be as smooth. Thus, it is well within the
general knowledge of a worker in the art to increase the distance as opposed
to the thickness in order to create a more refined taper which in turn would
provide a smoother transition surface (answer, pages 4-5).
After a consideration of the teachings to be fairly derived from the applied patent to
Glatz by one of ordinary skill in the art, we must agree with appellant that there is no
reasonable teaching, suggestion or motivation in Glatz to modify the configuration of the
flooring adapter shown and disclosed in that patent to be an elongate wedge in sheet form
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