Appeal No. 1999-0523
Application 08/797,523
As a consequence of our review, we make the determinations
which follow.
We reverse each of the examiner’s rejections of
appellants’ claims. Our reasoning appears below.
At the outset, we appreciate from a consideration of
each of appellants’ independent claims 1 and 11, read in light
of the underlying specification and drawing, that a shelving
system is set forth that requires, inter alia, a shelf sup-
porting shoulder projecting from a side wall of a second shelf
rail, with a first slot in the shoulder for receiving the
tongue of a first shelf rail and a second slot in the sidewall
for receiving a tab of the first shelf rail.
Turning now to the Cohen reference, applied by the
examiner in the anticipation rejection, we find that this
reference clearly lacks a teaching of the required “shelf
supporting shoulder” of claims 1 and 11. Contrary to the view
of the examiner (answer, page 6), we are of the opinion that
one versed in the art simply would not have viewed an edge of
a lower wall of a slot as a shoulder configuration. For this
reason, the rejection of appellants’ claims 1 through 6 and
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