Application of Crotty, Patent Appeal No. 6463.

• Decision Date: 07 December 1959
• Docket Number: Patent Appeal No. 6463.
• Citation: 272 F.2d 957,47 CCPA 738
• Parties: Application of Willard E. CROTTY.
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

47 CCPA 738, 272 F.2d 957 (1959)

Application of Willard E. CROTTY.

Patent Appeal No. 6463.

United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

December 7, 1959.

Pyle & Fisher, Cleveland, Ohio (Ray S. Pyle, Cleveland, Ohio, of counsel), for appellant.

Clarence W. Moore, Washington, D. C. (S. Wm. Cochran, Washington, D. C., of counsel), for Commissioner of Patents.

Before WORLEY, Chief Judge, and RICH, MARTIN, SMITH and JOHNSON, retired, Judges.

WORLEY, Chief Judge.

This appeal is from the decision of the Board of Appeals of the United States Patent Office affirming the rejection by the Primary Examiner of the single claim of appellant's application for a patent on a design for a life jacket. The claim reads:

The ornamental design for a Life Jacket as shown and described.

The references relied on are:

                  Gibson    1,670,887   May 22, 1928
                  Denton    1,931,406   October 17, 1933
                  Straits   2,307,810   January 12, 1943
                

Appellant's application discloses a life jacket comprising two identical buoyant pillows of substantially rectangular shape, designed to fit across the chest and back, respectively, of the wearer. They are joined at their ends by relatively wide flat bands of slightly less width than the pillows and adapted to fit under the arms of the wearer. Shoulder straps are secured to the tops of the pillows at points adjacent their ends.

The Denton patent, the principal reference, shows a life jacket in which the front and back are composed of two matching buoyant pillows which are juxtaposed and strapped together to provide a substantially unitary pillow of generally rectangular shape, but with an arcuate depression which, in the front pillow, will lie below the chin, and in the back pillow, below the back of the head when the jacket is in place. The pillows are connected by shoulder straps in substantially the same manner as in appellant's jacket, but are connected by relatively narrow straps which pass under the arms of the wearer.

The Straits and Gibson patents were cited to show use of rectangular pillows in life preserving devices. It was the position of the Patent Office that no invention would be involved in substituting rectangular pillows as shown by Gibson and Straits for the two-piece pillows of Denton and using wide bands under the arms in place of Denton's narrow bands.

It is, of course, well settled that it is the appearance of a design as a whole which is primarily determinative of the issue of patentability. In re...