Appeal No. 97-0972
Application 08/399,571
We AFFIRM-IN-PART. Additionally, pursuant to our authority
under the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.196(b), we will enter a new
rejection of claims 5 and 9-12 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph.
The appellants’ invention pertains to a hold-down device for
maintaining, in a substantially horizontal orientation, theater
seats that are normally biased to a substantially vertically
orientation. Independent claim 1 is further illustrative of the
appealed subject matter and reads as follows:
1. A theater seat hold-down device for maintaining a seat
member of at least one conventional theater seat in a
substantially horizontal orientation, said conventional
theater seat including an armrest assembly disposed on
either side of a seat member, the armrest assembly including
an armrest and an armrest support, the conventional theater
seat further including a biasing device for biasing the seat
member in a substantially vertical orientation when the seat
member is not in use, said theater seat hold-down device
comprising:
an elongated member adapted to extend between an
armrest assembly and a seat member, said elongated
member defining an armrest assembly engagement
portion and a seat engagement portion, said
armrest assembly engagement portion being
configured to engage the armrest assembly and said
seat engagement portion being configured to engage
at least one seat member adjacent to the armrest
assembly such that the seat member is maintained
in a substantially horizontal orientation.
The references relied on by the examiner are:
Devney 1,276,735 Aug. 27, 1918
Gardels 2,618,497 Nov. 18, 1952
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007