Appeal No. 98-2111
Application 08/596,564
relationship to said cylindrically shaped portion of said
container” and disposed to engage said cylindrically shaped
portion “in snug-fitting relationship,” with said inner
surface “extending vertically above said food holding section”
when said section is in a specified food holding orientation.
After reviewing the teachings of Patterson ‘737 and
Patterson ‘028, we must agree with appellants that the
collective teachings of the applied patents would not have
been suggestive to one of ordinary skill in the art at the
time of appellants’ invention of the tray or food serving
arrangement set forth by appellants in the claims before us on
appeal. Like appellants (brief, pages 7-9), we fail to find
in Patterson ‘737 any teaching or suggestion of a “snug-
fitting relationship” between an inner cylindrical hub surface
and an outer cylindrical container surface as required in the
claims on appeal. The examiner’s position that Figure 2 of
Patterson ‘737 shows a snug fit between the recess (34) and
the outer surface of the glass (24) is based entirely on
speculation and conjecture, since Patterson ‘737 is silent
concerning any such relationship and, when the disclosure
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