Appeal No. 97-0082
Application No. 07/993,718
requires that the neck engaging portion and the interconnection
be “formed in the same plane.” In Ranford, however, the
interconnection 29 is in a plane which is perpendicular to the
plane of the neck engaging portion 30. Accordingly, we will not
sustain the rejection of claim 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 based on
the combined teachings of Ranford, Bales and Kalt.
Under the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.196(b) we make the
following new rejection.
Claims 6, 7 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Bales. Initially, we note that the issue
of obviousness is not only determined by what the references
expressly state but also is determined by what they would fairly
suggest to those of ordinary skill in the art. See, e.g., In re
Delisle, 406 F.2d 1386, 1389, 160 USPQ 806, 808-09 (CCPA 1969)
and In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385, 1390, 163 USPQ 545, 549-50 (CCPA
1969). Moreover, in evaluating such references it is proper to
take into account not only the specific teachings of the
references but also the inferences which one skilled in the art
9(...continued)
interconnection of a material less flexible that the neck
engaging portion while Kalt has apparently been relied on by the
examiner only for a teaching of transparency (a limitation which
we observe is not found in claim 23).
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