Appeal No. 97-1088
Application 08/518,957
The appellant’s arguments to the contrary rest on a
purported failure of West to meet the elongated solid bead
limitations. In this regard, the appellant submits that “West
does not have a ‘bead’ which is a separate element from the panel
section 5" (main brief, page 7), that West’s compound 8 “is shown
in the drawings to be a particulate, which is not elongated and
which does not form a solid bead” (main brief, page 8), and that
“[t]he raised lettering of West is not intended to be a gripping
surface” (main brief, page 9). None of these arguments is
persuasive.
To begin with, claim 1 does not actually call for the beads
to be “separate” from the panel member. In any event, however,
West’s compound 8 and panel member or body section 5 are
certainly “separate” under the ordinary and accustomed meaning of
this term. The compound 8 as it exists in the West label also3
forms elements which can reasonably be described as being “solid
beads” under the ordinary and accustomed meanings of these
3 Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (G. & C. Merriam Co.
1977) defines the term “separate” as meaning “existing by itself”
or “dissimilar in nature or identity.”
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Last modified: November 3, 2007