Appeal No. 96-3611
Application No. 08/306,688
The references relied on by the examiner are:
Luebke 4,380,290 Apr. 19, 1983
Mroz 4,890,731 Jan. 2, 1990
Hager 5,082,110 Jan. 21, 1992
Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Luebke in view of Mroz and Hager.
Reference is made to the briefs and the answer for the
respective positions of the appellants and the examiner.
OPINION
The obviousness rejection of claim 1 is reversed.
We agree with appellants’ arguments (Brief, pages 5 and 6)
that the housing 12 in Luebke is not “transparent,” that the end
caps 18 and 20 are not formed from a “resilient plastic
material,” that the end caps 18 and 20 do not have “an internally
projecting flange with concave surfaces to resiliently engage the
opposite ends of the inserted skis,” and that one end of the skis
is “engaged by a partition 35 which is movable along the length
of the housing 12.” With respect to the suitcase-styled carrying
case 10 in Mroz for carrying bats, we agree with appellants’
argument (Brief, page 6) that “[t]here is no way that the Mroz
carrying case could be utilized as a . . . transparent display
case which completely encloses a baseball bat as set forth in
Claim 1.” Although Hager discloses a concave-shaped pedestal 17
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