Appeal No. 97-4042
Application 08/578,248
Anderson clearly teaches an “oval” shaped pocket along one
edge of the tray for the self-evident purpose of accommodating
elongated articles. One of ordinary skill in this art would
have found it obvious to make the first pocket of Mackey
(i.e., the right-hand beverage receiving recess 16 as depicted
in Fig. 1) oval or ?different? in shape in order to achieve
Anderson’s self-evident advantage of accommodating elongated
articles. With respect to claim 17, Mackey expressly states
that the beverage receiving wells may “hold different sized
cups or tumblers” (column 1, line 45). Particularly in view
of this teaching, one of ordinary skill in this art would have
found it obvious to vary the depth of the beverage receiving
recesses as desired (e.g., to between 3 and
3½ inches) in order to accommodate various sized commonly used
beverage containers (including a large size container such as
depicted by the appellants on the right-hand side of the tray
in Fig. 2). As to the particular distance between the
downward projections, in comparing the size of Mackey’s tray
relative to the car seat as depicted in Fig. 2, it appears
that the distance between the downward projections 16 is in
fact “on the order of 14 inches” as claimed. In any event,
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