Appeal No. 1996-3918
Application No. 08/232,351
than the mere fact of copying by an accused infringer is
needed to make that action significant to a determination of
the obviousness issue" because "copying could have occurred
out of a general lack of concern for patent property," Cable
Electric Products, Inc. v. Genmark, Inc., 770 F.2d at 1028,
226 USPQ at 889.
When all the evidence and argument are considered anew it
is our conclusion that, on balance, the evidence and argument
presented by the appellant taken as a whole fails to outweigh
the evidence of obviousness established by the prior art. See
Newell Cos. v. Kenney Mfg. Co., 864 F.2d 757, 768, 9 USPQ2d
1417, 1426 (Fed. Cir. 1988) and In re Beattie, 974 F.2d 1309,
1313, 24 USPQ2d 1040, 1043 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
Accordingly, we will sustain the rejection of claims 1,
3-5, 8, 9 and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Cramblett in view of White.
Turning to Rejections (2) and (3), both of these
rejections are based on the examiner's view that:
It would have been obvious to provide the vertically
movable portion of Fig. 2's [the prior art of Fig.
2] height adjusting mechanism (i.e., the slide
means) with a center bracket as claimed with
14
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