Appeal No. 97-0374
Application 08/310,493
Appellant’s invention relates to a display rack for
bottles and the like. Claim 6 is representative of the
subject matter on appeal and a copy of that claim, as it
appears in the appendix to appellant’s brief, is attached to
this decision.
The single prior art reference of record relied upon by
the examiner as evidence of obviousness of the claimed subject
matter is:
Murphy 3,964,810 Jun. 22, 1976
Claims 6 and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Murphy. As indicated on page 2 of the
final rejection, it is the examiner’s position that
Murphy shows all of the claimed invention except for
the shape of the pillars 45 and posts C. To merely
modify the shape is generally considered to be
obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art, as it
would be here, to make the pillars and posts of
Murphy triang-ular in shape. Note, lines 4-6 in
column 7 which indicate stackability.
Reference is made to the final rejection (Paper no. 4,
mailed February 23, 1996) and to the examiner's answer (Paper
2
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