Appeal No. 97-2464
Application 29/038,531
least with appellants’ assertion that the proposed combination of
the examiner appears to be nothing more than a hindsight
reconstruction of the invention.
It appears to us that the examiner has selectively chosen
certain design features of the cited references while
deliberately ignoring other design features of the references
just so the claimed design would result. The Brenner design
suggests that the midsection of the bottle where the horizontal
ribs are placed should be curved to give the impression of an
actual belted waistline. The examiner ignores this part of the
Brenner design, however, and seeks to use only the ribs
themselves without the bottle shape. This selective use of the
design characteristics of the prior art suggests that it is
driven by a hindsight reconstruction of the invention rather than
the objective teachings of the references. There is nothing on
this record to suggest that the bottle designer would consider
the use of midsection ribs without the corresponding waistline
shape. Such an ornamental appearance is very different from the
claimed design which seeks to give the illusion of a waistline
without sacrificing the interior volume of the bottle. We are of
the view that the bottle designer of ordinary skill having the
applied references available would not have combined them in a
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