Appeal No. 1998-3413
Application No. 08/512,782
design choice, is unsupported speculation and impermissibly
reads the above express limitations out of appellant’s claim
11. At the very least, the above construction set forth in
appellant’s claim 11 on appeal would strengthen the rim of the
pot and permit the type of nested storage seen in Figure 3 of
the application, while the configuration of the pot seen in
Coleman clearly would not. Accordingly, the examiner’s
rejection of claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on
Coleman is not sustained.
The examiner’s rejection of claims 13 through 17 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Coleman in view of "the state of
the art," is sustained. Essentially we agree with the
examiner (answer, pages 5-6) that the collar or ring member
(10) of Coleman is tapered and dimension at the central rim
area (13) so as to permit the nesting of another container
member of some given size and corresponding shape in the
opening in the collar or ring member (10) and so that the side
wall of the second container is in nesting, abutting
relationship to the interior of the side wall of the container
(18), and that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
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