Appeal No. 2006-1451
Application No. 08/802,472
writing respectively. The appellant argues essentially the same as in claim 5,
particularly the lack of a specific description that the photographs are used during the
respective activity, and our discussion with respect to claim 5 applies here as well. We
note that Gossard provides an explicit utility beyond that of containing the enclosed
articles, that described as “shaped to identify a particular sport” [See col. 1 lines 21]
whose utility is presenting a novelty form for view. Although Gossard is silent as to the
choice of substances the container would be made from, as we noted above,
characteristics in the prior art may be inherent or implicit, and we note that a magic
marker (specific to the claim 22) can leave writing on almost any surface, and, more to
the point, the containers in Gossard are highly personal and therefore must have been
created with some capacity to receive some indicia of ownership following acquisition.
Therefore, we find the appellant's arguments as to claims 20 and 22 to be
unpersuasive. Accordingly, we sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 20 and 22
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being unpatentable as anticipated by Gossard.
As to claims 28, 30 and 31, these claim are dependent from claim 5 and specify
that there be an additional article, that the activity be a sport, and that the package have
separably joinable pieces respectively. The appellant argues essentially the same as
in claim 5, particularly the lack of a specific description that the photographs are used
during the respective activity, and our discussion with respect to claim 5 applies here as
well. We note that Gossard provides an explicit drawing showing a second article, i.e. a
second photograph, in each of Figs. 2, 5 and 8. We further note that the drawings in
Gossard portray a baseball, football, basketball and hockey puck, each suggestive of
9
Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007