Appeal 2007-0008
Application 09/818,023
and Seufert ‘206 and claims 8-10 and 12-15 as unpatentable over Campbell
in view of Seufert ‘916 and Haddock are also reversed.
NEW GROUNDS OF REJECTION
Pursuant to our authority under 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b), we enter the
following new grounds of rejection.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Campbell in view of Appellant’s admission (Specification 36:24-26) and
Seufert ‘916.
“A person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not
an automaton.” KSR Int’l. Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 1742, 82
USPQ2d 1385, 1397 (2007).
When a work is available in one field of endeavor,
design incentives and other market forces can
prompt variations of it, either in the same field or a
different one. If a person of ordinary skill can
implement a predictable variation, §103 likely bars
its patentability. For the same reason, if a
technique has been used to improve one device,
and a person of ordinary skill in the art would
recognize that it would improve similar devices in
the same way, using the technique is obvious
unless its actual application is beyond his or her
skill.
Id. at 1740, 82 USPQ2d at 1396. We must ask whether the improvement is
more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their
established functions. Id.
Campbell discloses the method of claim 1 with the exception of the
fold line extending transversely to the reinforced region having a first
section within the reinforced region and a second section outside the
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