Appeal 2007-0924
Application 10/401,079
incorporate a separate compartment for containing emergency pills or other
medicinal agents. Yannuzzi's container 10 is provided with intermediate
partition walls 20, 21 to define a pill containing compartment 22 separate
from the compartment 24 in which medical information sheet 26 is
contained (Yannuzzi, col. 2, ll. 26-38; Fig. 3). The suggestion to provide a
separate compartment within the cover member 22b of Wolfe for containing
other objects, such as emergency pills, is provided by Yannuzzi's teaching of
providing "still another compartment for containing emergency pills or other
medicinal agents used in emergency treatment" (Yannuzzi, col. 1, ll. 62-64).
Specifically, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been prompted
by the teaching of Yannuzzi to provide structure defining a second
compartment within the cover member 22b of Wolfe, separate from the
compartment in which label 20b is stored, for containing emergency pills or
other medicinal agents that may be indicated by the medical condition to
which the medical information label is directed.
Moreover, the structural modifications necessary to provide such a
second compartment within cover member 22b of Wolfe would not have
been beyond the technical grasp of a person of ordinary skill in the art. To
assume, as Appellant's argument implies, that one of ordinary skill in the art
would not be able to re-design the device of Wolfe so as to accommodate the
additional compartment within cover member 22b inappropriately presumes
lack of skill and ordinary creativity on the part of the person of ordinary skill
in the art.
For the above reasons, we conclude that modification of Wolfe's
device to provide structure defining a second compartment therein for
containing emergency pills or other medicinal agents used in emergency
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