Appeal No. 98-0111
Application No. 08/290,213
accommodated, in view of the explicit teaching to this effect
provided by Taylor.
The rejection of independent claims 1 and 6, and
dependent claims 3, 5 and 12, is sustained.
The last rejection posed by the examiner is that claim 4
is unpatentable over VanHoose in view of Taylor and Davis, the
latter being cited for its teaching of providing the liner
with foldable sections to facilitate storage and handling.
The appellant argues that it would not have been obvious to
fold the wall sections of the VanHoose liner because they
already are detachable from the floor section. We do not
agree. It is our view that one of ordinary skill in the art
would have been taught by Davis to provide fold lines in
whatever portions need to be foldable from their assembled
configuration to make storage and handling more convenient.
The fact that these elements may also be detachable from
others of the elements does not alter this conclusion. We
point out that the claim merely requires that “said side and
end wall sections of each said liner member are foldable
relative to the floor section thereof,” which is broad enough
to include folding the wall sections for this purpose, even if
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