Appeal No. 97-2712
Application 08/285,349
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
anticipated by the Chadwick patent. More specifically, the6
claimed container reads on the protector disclosed by Chadwick
(Fig. 3), which protector is clearly capable of being nestable
with other containers of the same size.
Claims 2 through 5 and 9 through 11 are rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Chadwick in view of
the French Patent. In our opinion, it would have been obvious7
6Anticipation under 35 U.S.C. 102(b) is established only
when a single prior art reference discloses, either expressly or
under principles of inherency, each and every element of a
claimed invention. See In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1478-1479,
31 USPQ2d 1671, 1675 (Fed. Cir. 1994), In re Spada, 911 F.2d 705,
708, 15 USPQ2d 1655, 1657 (Fed. Cir. 1990), and RCA Corp. v.
Applied Digital Data Systems, Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ
385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). However, the law of anticipation does
not require that the reference teach specifically what an
appellant has disclosed and is claiming but only that the claims
"read on" something disclosed in the reference, i.e., all
limitations of the claim are found in the reference. See Kalman
v. Kimberly Clark Corp., 713 F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ 781, 789
(Fed. Cir. 1983); cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1026 (1984).
7The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of
references would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the
art. See In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591, 18 USPQ2d 1089, 1091
(Fed. Cir. 1991) and In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ
871, 881 (CCPA 1981). However, it must also be kept in mind that
an obviousness question cannot be approached on the basis that an
artisan having ordinary skill would have known only what they
read in references, because such artisan must be presumed to know
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