APPLICATION OF CADEMARTORI

• Decision Date: 27 June 1968
• Docket Number: Patent Appeal No. 7958.
• Citation: 397 F.2d 992
• Parties: Application of Mervyn CADEMARTORI.
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

397 F.2d 992 (1968)

Application of Mervyn CADEMARTORI.

Patent Appeal No. 7958.

United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

June 27, 1968.

George A. Arkwright, Jr., Shlesinger, Arkwright & Garvey, Washington, D. C., Noel G. Conway, Santa Ana, Cal., for appellant.

Joseph Schimmel, Washington, D. C. (George C. Roeming, Washington, D. C., of counsel), for Commissioner of Patents.

Before WORLEY, Chief Judge, and RICH, SMITH, ALMOND and KIRKPATRICK^*, Judges.

RICH, Judge.

This appeal is from a decision of the Patent Office Board of Appeals¹ affirming the rejection of claims 5, 7, 9, and 11 of application serial No. 314,926, filed October 9, 1963, entitled "Roller Applicator Particularly Adapted for Coating Rough Surfaces." The board reversed the rejection of claim 6, the only other claim in the application.

The invention is a paint roller specially adapted for use on rough surfaces. It includes a handle, a rotatable drum, and a sponge-like sleeve in which there are numerous mutually perpendicular slits. The effect of the slits is to divide the sleeve into independently deformable segments which make it useful in the application of paint to rough surfaces. Fig. 1 shows an embodiment of the invention:

Claim 5 is illustrative:

5. A roller applicator comprising: a handle;

a drum connected to said handle and mounted for rotation;

a sleeve encircling said drum;

at least four circumferential slits in said sleeve encircling the drum, one of said slits being adjacent one end of said sleeve, a second of said slits being adjacent the opposite end of said sleeve;

a plurality of longitudinal slits extending between said one circumferential slit and said second circumferential slit and crossing said circumferential slits between said one and second slits at a substantial angle, said circumferential and longitudinal slits being spaced substantially equidistant apart, said slits being of a depth substantially equal to the distance between slits.

The board relied primarily on the following references.²

                  Bridgford                  2,761,167      Sept. 4, 1956
                  Guggenheim (French)          874,496      May   4, 1942
                

Bridgford discloses a paint roller in which "the applicator roller is made with a solid body of fluid saturable porous cellular and deformable material like vinyl plastic or Ivalon * * *." It incorporates certain features to make it useful in painting chain link fences. Chief among these are radial slits in the sponge to receive the wires of the fence.

Guggenheim discloses an improved sponge characterized by mutually perpendicular cuts which divide its surface into a "number of independent blocks." Advantages include:

In the first place, the sponge is provided with greater suppleness. If non-flat surfaces, such as moldings or other wall ornaments are to be cleaned, this part of the sponge is deformed much more easily inasmuch as the blocks, by moving apart, completely conform to the shape of these moldings; thus cleaning is performed under much better conditions than with ordinary sponges whose surfaces, forming one single block, can be deformed only with greater difficulty.

While the only drawing in the patent shows an artificial cellulose sponge of "parallepipedal shape", the specification contains this statement:

It will be noted, however, that the invention can be applied, under the same conditions and with the same advantages, to sponges of any other shape and made of any other material.

The board found appellant's invention obvious in view of these references:

Bridgford recognizes that the problem of applying a rolled liquid coating to an uneven surface, such as fencing, could be overcome by providing a series of slits in a sponge roller that would allow a local deformation of the roller to accommodate the uneveness,

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