Appeal No. 96-1996
Application 08/181,075
more efficient door blocking member" (Answer, page 6). The
examiner's position here is undermined by the fact that the
blocks in the Hoopes door retaining system do not contact the
door, but support a spring which does so (Figure 2; page 1,
column 2). From our perspective, there would have been no
suggestion to one of ordinary skill in the art to substitute them
for pad 5 of the Swiss reference. In the final analysis, the
teachings of Hoopes do not overcome the deficiencies in the Swiss
reference, and therefore this rejection of claims 21 and 22 is
not sustained.
Both of the independent claims also stand rejected as being
unpatentable over the Swiss reference taken in view of Salerno,
which discloses a device for blocking a sliding door from
closing. Unlike the Swiss reference, the Salerno device is
gravity biased into position rather than being spring biased. As
shown in Figure 1, Salerno mounts a weighted ball 6 upon a rod 7
which, in turn, is attached to the door frame. The ball rests
against the surface of the sliding door, and when the door is
moved from its closed position, ball 7 falls into a position in
the path of the door to block it from closing.
It is the examiner's position that it would have been
obvious
8
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