Appeal No. 96-2852
Application 08/055,573
line opening consisting of a straight tubular structure 12 and/or
Lyle’s disclosure of a measuring tape having a tape opening
defined by L-shaped extension 7 would have suggested shaping the
neck of Millen’s casing so as to meet the above noted limitations
in claim 1. The examiner’s apparent attempt to overcome these
deficiencies in the prior art by citing In re Dailey, 357 F.2d
669, 149 USPQ 47 (CCPA 1966) for the proposition that no
patentable moment is derived from the specified shape of an
article in an utility application is unsound. In Dailey, the
court stated that “[a]ppellants have presented no argument which
convinces us that the particular configuration of their container
is significant or is anything more than one of numerous
configurations a person of ordinary skill in the art would find
obvious” (357 F.2d at 672-73, 149 USPQ at 50). In contrast, the
appellant’s specification (see page 2) establishes that an arched
neck as recited in claim 1 makes it easy to hold the chalk line
against the surface to be marked without the need to reel out an
excess amount of line or to wrap a portion of the line around
user’s finger, thereby increasing the user’s control of the chalk
box as compared to the traditional design. Thus, the shape of
the neck recited in claim 1 is significant in that it solves a
stated problem. Under these circumstances and given the
5
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