Appeal No. 97-1473
Application 08/492,376
are of the view that the examiner has engaged in an
impermissible hindsight reconstruction in attempting to modify
the compact case set forth in patent claims 1 and 15, in light
of the distinctly different random number selection device of
Albright, so as to provide numbers on both faces of the disks
in the compact case of patent claims 1 and 15. While it is
essential that the cubes (20) of Albright, which are suspended
and freely movable in a random manner in the fluid (23) of the
container (2), have numbers on all of the faces of the cubes
so as to provide a complete number
in the window area (5) so that a six digit lottery number may
be selected, we observe that no such requirement is present or
necessary with regard to the disks (34) in the compact case of
appellant's prior U.S. Patent No. 5,454,567. In contrast to
the cubes of Albright, the disks of the '567 patent are
constrained to move in a single plane in the space (32)
between the platform (31) and the cover (35) and thus only one
face of the disks, on the side adjacent the transparent cover
(35), would require a number thereon. Given the distinctly
different structural and functional relationships involved
5
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