Appeal No. 95-3109
Application 08/043,113
Yanagishima, the examiner's primary reference, “relates to a
speaker using a vehicle panel as a replacement for the speaker
cone of a cone-type speaker” (column 1, lines 13-15). As
explained at column 3, lines 24-29,
[t]he panel speaker 50 generally utilizes a vehicle
panel 52, which comprises part of a vehicle body, as as
[sic, as an] oscillation member instead of a speaker
cone. The vehicle panel 52 is oscillated by a driver
54 which is attached to the vehicle panel 52 and drives
the latter to produce audio sound vibrations.
In Figures 14-30, Yanagishima discloses several embodiments
for providing the rear parcel shelf of a vehicle with both a
panel speaker and a cone-type loudspeaker. The linchpin of the
standing § 103 rejections is the examiner’s position that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
modify the Figures 17-18 embodiment of Yanagishima in view of the
Figures 19-21 embodiment thereof in a manner that would result in
the subject matter of independent claims on appeal. The examiner
explains the rejection on pages 4 and 5 of the answer as follows:
In Yanagishima et al., Fig. 18, the rear parcel shelf
inner panel 103 which constitutes a part of the vehicle
body is readable as a so-called “vehicle body member.”
See column 7, lines 66-68. Further, the rear parcel
shelf 100 . . . formed with through openings 120 is
readable as a so-called “support member having an
opening therein[.]”
Yanagishima et al., Fig. 21, discloses another
embodiment of a mounting assembly for mounting a
loudspeaker in a vehicle wherein the speaker cover or
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