Appeal No. 2004-0891
Application No. 09/810,539
appellant’s figure 3.
Also, the claim requires that the rear wall of the housing
is exposed externally and the air exhaust outlet vent directly
externally of the room without any external conduit such that
all air and smaller particles of waste material vent outside the
room. As pointed out by the examiner on pages 7 and 8 of the
answer, Simonelli discloses venting externally of a room without
an exhaust conduit, with the stud space being a region external
to the room, and refers to column 5, line 71, through column 6,
line 3 of Simonelli. Appellant’s claims do not preclude the
inside of a wall as being “externally of the room.”
Appellant also argues that Simonelli does not teach to
place the exhaust outlet in the rear wall of the housing. On
page 8 of the answer, the examiner states that it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to relocate the
outlet from the sidewall to the rear wall because it has been
held that rearranging parts of an invention involves only
routine skill in the art. We agree. Appellant does not
demonstrate otherwise.
In view of the above, we affirm the rejection of claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 103as being unpatenable over Simonelli.
IV. The rejection of claim 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being obvious over Simonelli in view of Harrelson
On page 20 of the brief, appellant argues that because
Harrelson does not cure the asserted deficiencies of Simonelli,
claim 5 is also allowable. However, for the reasons stated
above, because we agree with the examiner’s rejection of claim 1
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