Appeal No. 1997-0276
Application No. 08/357,641
According to the examiner, applicants' claims stand or
fall together. Accordingly, we will confine our consideration
to the independent claims 1, 8, and 10.
OPINION
We have carefully reviewed the rejections on appeal in
light of the arguments of the appellants and the examiner. As
a result of this review, we have determined that the applied
prior art does not establish a prima facie case of obviousness
with respect to claims 1 through 9. The rejections of these
claims are reversed. The applied prior art does establish a
prima facie case of obviousness with respect to claim 10. The
rejection of this claim is affirmed. Our reasons follow.
We are in agreement with the examiner's finding that
Mattice shows a mobile home with a slide-out unit disposed in
an opening therein. Mattice further discloses, at 128, a tarp
that is neatly rolled onto the exterior surface of a roller
130 as the slide out unit is retracted. According to Mattice,
[t]he cover feature is important to the
environmental protection of the interior of the
trailer 20 to prevent the accumulation of, for
example, snow, water and dirt onto the top of
expandable section 22. Without the automatically
retractable cover feature, the accumulated snow,
water, dirt, etc., on the top of the expandable
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