Appeal No. 2007-0023
Application No. 10/410,854
loosening due to vibration as discussed in Wescott” (answer, page
10). The benefit disclosed by Wescott, however, pertains to a
solid shank. The examiner has not established that one of
ordinary skill in the art would have expected the benefit to
apply to Nodière’s bolt having a hollow shank. Furthermore,
Nodière’s bolt also resists loosening due to vibration, but does
so by having a wavy hollow shank with a cross-sectional area
that, at all axial points, equals the cross-sectional area
between the deepest points of the threads (page 1, left column,
lines 1-33). The examiner has not established that in view of
the applied references, one of ordinary skill in the art would
have expected Wescott’s arced outer wall to provide better
resistance to vibration than Nodière’s wavy hollow shank having
the same cross-sectional area as the core between the deepest
points of the threads, or would have had some other motivation to
depart from Nodière’s required 1:1 cross-sectional area ratio and
instead use Wescott’s arced outer wall.
We therefore conclude that the examiner has not established
a prima facie case of obviousness of the invention claimed in the
appellant’s claims 38, 44 and 50. A further reason why the
examiner has not established a prima facie case of obviousness of
the inventions claimed in the appellant’s claims 38 and 50 is
that, like claim 24 discussed above, they require a fastener that
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