This appeal is from the decision of the Patent Office Board of Appeals affirming the examiner’s rejection of claim 5 1 2under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious in view of Barnes 2 considered with Dryden. 3
*1000 The invention relates to a masonry block structure. The conventional masоnry block familiar to all consists of two flat, concrete layers separated by intervening conсrete webs which form insulating air spaces between the two outer layers. In essence, appellant’s block consists of a “sandwich” of two outer layers of load-bearing concrete and an intervening, coextensive layer or core of heat-insulating, polymeric foam material, such as рolyurethane or polystyrene foam. Claim 5 reads:
5. A thermal insulation load supporting building block for wall construction comprising a composite block consisting of external and internal portions of solid load bearing non-reinforced concrete of substantially like lateral thickness, and an intervening рortion of rigid light cellular heat insulating organic foam material having a substantially uniform lateral thickness at least as great as the thickness of said outer portions, said cellular portion being bonded to bоth of said outer portions over their entire contacting faces and completely sepаrating said external and internal portions, and all of said portions being of substantially the same height and lеngth, the exterior inner and outer surfaces of said block being concrete.
Barnes, the British patent, rеlates to “concrete structures, particularly to reinforced concrete beams and оther concrete members” with an inner core “composed wholly or partly of a foamed polymeric material”, such as foamed polystyrene or polyurethane. This core can cоmprise a “solid block” which “can be in a continuous length of the size appropriate to the bеam or other member being constructed.” Dryden, for its part, suggests a building block consisting of two layers of loаd-bearing glass material separated by a co-extensive inner layer of heat-insulating, foamed glass material, together with additional layers of foamed glass and veneer on the interior side of the block.
Considering the content of the prior art and the level of ordinary skill in the art as reflected by the rеferences, the board states:
* * * We find in the British reference [Barnes] precedent for the use of сement and organic foam in the order recited and to the exclusion of other layers. To substitute suсh materials in the fabrication of the Dryden Building block does not appear to us to be more than a matter of obvious selection of materials for their known properties and uses. * * *
The board also held that it would be obvious to omit the two additional interior layers of foam and veneer of the Dryden structure.
We find no error in these determinations. The British patent teaches the juxtaposition, in a concrete member, of layers of concrete and organic foam material; while the stress is on a concrete beam with a hollow foam core, express mention is also made of “other concrete members” and of a “solid block” core “in a continuous length of the size appropriate to the beam or other member.” Dryden, dealing with a glass building block, discloses eo-extensive layers оf material (glass) 4 and foam in a composite building block, with the foam useful for insulation against transfer of hеat and sound. Together, these references make it obvious to one skilled in the field of concrеte structures and building blocks to put together foam and concrete, in a composite building block, in thе way taught by rejected claim 5.
While appellant urges that the rejection is sustainable only upon hindsight rеconstruction of the prior art, we are not at all convinced that that is so. Like the board, we are persuaded that the differences in material or form between the subject matter claimed and
*1001
the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time thе invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art. It is, of course, not necessary that either Barnes or Dryden actually suggest, expressly or in so many words, the changes or possible improvements aрpellant has made. In re Rosse-let,
The decision is affirmed.
Affirmed.
Notes
. Appearing in appliсation serial No. 591, 651, filed November 2, 1966 for “Insulated Masonry Blocks”.
. British specification 856,677, published Decembеr 21, 1960.
. U. S. Patent No. 2,449,458, issued September 14, 1948.
. The preferred material is glass but “reference to the block as being of glass is not intended to exсlude the use of other eom-patible components for special purposes, the basic characteristrics being still those imparted by the fact of using glass.”