Appeal No. 97-2547
Application 07/949,042
A person of ordinary skill in the art would have readily
appreciated Russell’s step of conveying envelopes and their
contents from an opening machine to sorting desks or work
stations along an elongate horizontal path to be an
advantageous manner of distributing the contents to areas
remote from the machine. This appreciation would have
provided such a person with ample motivation or suggestion to
add such a step to the DeHart method, thereby arriving at the
subject matter recited in claim 48. In this light, the
various impermissible hindsight arguments presented by the
appellants in the main and reply briefs (Paper Nos. 36 and 38)
are not persuasive.
Additionally, it is noted that in the earlier appeal the
appellants relied upon the above noted Krupotich declaration,
which purportedly demonstrates commercial success and copying,
as evidence of non-obviousness. For whatever reason, the
appellants have not relied upon the Krupotich declaration in
arguing the merits of the standing 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection
of claim 48 in the current appeal. Thus, the declaration is
not at issue with regard to this rejection. See 37 CFR §
1.192(a) (“The brief . . . must set forth the authorities
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