Appeal No. 97-4151
Application 08/379,181
With respect to claims 9, 10, 19 and 20, appellant argues
that it would not have been obvious to use the claimed
materials, which "have been selected for their strength,
attractiveness, and suitability for the practice of this
invention" (brief, page 12). The examiner's position is that
(answer, page 4):
it would have been obvious to one having ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made
to employ any conventional material such as acrylic
resin, since it has been held to be within the
general skill of a worker in the art to select a
known material on the basis of its suitability for
the intended use as a matter of obvious design
choice. In re Leshin, [277 F.2d 197,] 125 USPQ 416
[(CCPA 1960)].
In spite of the statement on page 13 of appellant's brief
that "use of the claimed material in the invention is but one
type of material available from a wide range of other suitable
materials", claims 9, 10, 19 and 20 are not limited to one
particular material, but instead cover a very wide range of
materials, including, inter alia, such well known plastics as
polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, etc., which are
commonly used to make such items as containers. In view of
the disclosure of both Phibbs (col. 2, line 1) and Trombly
12
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007