Appeal No. 2007-0379 Page 13
Application No. 10/045,301
Credle to make up for the deficiencies in Boulter set forth above. Accordingly,
we reverse the rejection of claims 26 and 28-30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the combination of Boulter and Credle.
The combination of Boulter and Voznick:
Claims 1, 8, and 12-14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the combination of Boulter and Voznick.
To facilitate our discussion, we direct attention to Boulter’s Figure 24
reproduced above. According to the examiner (Answer, page 7, emphasis
added), Boulter
teaches a water-using unit . . . comprising a cabinet . . ., treated
water source (2300), a host system (fig 24,[ ]26), control system
(fig 24,[ ]26), a separate remote unit coupled to the unit (water
dispenser - ozonator 16,[ ]17 . . .) and a cooling source located in
cooling proximity to the reservoir (. . . ice maker [2019] is a cooling
source in cooling proximity to the reservoir 2301) as in instant
claim 1. The reservoir 2301 is proximate to the ice maker 2019, and
therefore, inherently would have cooling proximity, as in the
applicant’s invention disclosed in page 9 lines 15-20[ ]6 . . . .
The examiner finds that “Boulter does not teach a flexible reservoir for 2300 as in
[appellant’s] claim 1.” Answer, page 7, emphasis added. To make up for this
deficiency, the examiner relies on Voznick to teach “a reservoir having a bladder
in which the reverse osmosis water is inside the bladder . . . .” Id. Based on
these findings the examiner concludes that “[i]t would be obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to use the teaching of Voznick in
6 According to page 9, lines 15-18 of appellant’s specification “[i]n a preferred embodiment, the
reservoir 42 is located in close proximity to evaporator . . . or other cooling source (such as,
without limitation, ice in the ice bin of an ice maker or dispenser), to cool (pre-chill) the water
within the reservoir.”
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