Appeal No. 1997-4250
Application No. 08/405,366
pair of parallel side surfaces (424), the latter being
perpendicular to the support surface and slanted at an angle
other than a right angle to the front face of the structure.
In the Hicinbothem system, however, the support surface is
horizontally oriented, and therefore is not slanted, as is
required by all of the appellant’s claims. The examiner
recognizes this deficiency, and takes the position that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
modify Hicinbothem by slanting the support surfaces, in view
of the teachings of Starkweather.
Starkweather discloses a storage dispenser for metallic
objects having magnetic properties. It comprises a plurality
of bins, each of which is defined by a pair of upstanding
parallel side panels which are perpendicular to the front face
of the dispenser and a downwardly slanted support surface that
has a strip of magnetic material at its lower edge. When
articles having magnetic properties are placed in the bins,
they flow downwardly toward the lower edge of the bin under
the influence of their own weight until acted upon by the
magnetic strip, which holds them at the edge until they are
removed by the user (see column 5).
5
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