Appeal No. 97-0145
Application 08/073,327
in the self evident advantage of ease of aligning the base and
the cover as they are being joined, which would have been known
to the artisan, as well as Bettinger’s explicit teaching that
embodiments utilizing both non-angled and angled walls are usable
in joining the base and the cover of a tape cartridge (columns 3
and 4). Thus, the teachings of Bettinger establish a prima facie
case of obviousness with regard to the subject matter of claim
13.
The examiner has rejected claim 14 as being unpatentable
over Bettinger in view of the admitted prior art contained in the
appellants' specification. Bettinger does not disclose any
technique for attaching together the base and the cover of the
cartridge, however, one of ordinary skill in the art would have
recognized that it is implicit in this reference that such means
must be provided, or else the cartridge would be inoperative for
the purpose intended. On page 2 of their specification, the
appellants' state that it was known at the time of their
invention to ultrasonically weld together the two portions of a
tape cartridge. It therefore is our opinion that one of ordinary
skill in the art would have found it obvious to utilize such a
method for attaching together the base and the cover of the
Bettinger cartridge. In the course of this it further would have
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