Appeal No. 2006-2036 Page 8
Application No. 10/382,753
The appellant argues that there is no motivation to combine Van Romer and
Telder because there is no teaching or suggestion within Van Romer, Telder, or
elsewhere, to modify the Van Romer device to permit the landing wheel to remain
outside the containment area nor is there teaching or suggestion to modify Van
Romer to include the cutout of the Telder reference. (Appellant’s Brief, pp. 22).
The appellant notes that if the Van Romer containment device were modified to
add the cutout of Telder, the containment device would be less likely to capture all
of the crop spraying or fuel liquids since a portion of the plane would not be
positioned over the containment area. (Appellant’s Brief, p. 23).
The examiner responds that it would have been obvious to add the cutout of
Telder to the Van Romer device to avoid having the wheel of the aircraft run over
the damming means which could result in spillage of the fluid from the
containment area. (Examiner’s Answer, p. 12).
We agree with the appellant that there is not sufficient motivation to modify
the Van Romer containment system to add the wheel cutout of Telder.
Specifically, we hold that there would have been no motivation absent the teaching
of the present invention for one skilled in the art at the time of the invention to
modify Van Romer, which relates to a portable containment area for use with crop
spraying aircraft, with the teaching of a wheel cutout of Telder, which relates to an
oil changer device for aircraft. A review of Van Romer and Telder shows that a
modification of Van Romer with the cutout of Telder would provide no advantage
or beneficial result.
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