Appeal No. 97-1019
Application 08/063,463
skill in this art would interpret a “marginally positioned open
foot area” to be a -- notched out open area along one of the
peripheral or the border edges of the foot --. Clearly, a
central opening in the bottom of one of the feet or posts of
Stephens would not satisfy this limitation.
Second, even if we were to agree with the examiner that, as
a broad proposition, it would have been obvious to provide the
post 30 or 52 of Stephens with a utility outlet in view of the
teachings of Weissenbach at 30 and 31, we find nothing in the
combined teachings of Stephens, Weissenbach and Propst which
would have suggested providing the post 30 or 52 of Stephens with
an external utility channel having an outwardly oriented open
face in view of the teachings of Weissenbach and Propst. In both
Stephens and Weissenbach the utility channels extend interiorly
of the posts along the longitudinal axis thereof and have no
“open face” whatsoever (see, e.g., Fig. 2 of Stephens and Figs.
16, 18 and 21 of Weissenbach). With respect to Propst, the
examiner, as we have noted above, refers to “cover members 10, 98
over open, external channels of a utility post 96.” The member
96 of Propst, however, is an “ambient light fixture” (see column
8
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