Appeal No. 95-3109 Application 08/043,113 Appellant’s invention pertains to a grille assembly in combination with a vehicle body and a loudspeaker (claims 1-7), a grille assembly for mounting a loudspeaker to a vehicle body (claims 11-17), and a method of mounting a loudspeaker in a vehicle body (claims 18-20). Independent claim 1 is illustrative of the appealed subject matter and reads as follows: 1. In combination with a vehicle body defining in part a passenger compartment and supporting a loudspeaker, a grille assembly for directing sound from the loudspeaker into the passenger compartment, the grille assembly comprising: a support member on the vehicle body overlying the loudspeaker and having an opening therein aligned with the loudspeaker so that sound from the loudspeaker is directed through the opening; a discrete acoustically transparent grille extending across the opening in the support member; and a trim cloth covering the grille to conceal its finish and at least a portion of the support member so that the grille cannot be seen from within the passenger compartment; wherein sound from the loudspeaker passes through the opening in the support member and the grille as it is directed to the passenger compartment. The examiner relies upon the following references as evidence of obviousness in support of the rejections: Yanagishima et al. 4,514,599 Apr. 30, 1985 (Yanagishima) Skrzycki 4,853,966 Aug. 1, 1989 Smith 4,974,698 Dec. 4, 1990 2Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007