Appeal No. 98-2122 Page 3
Application No. 08/607,886
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Myers.
Claims 3, 8, 10-14 and 19-24 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Myers in view of Pickett.
As a preliminary matter, we base our understanding of the
appealed subject matter upon the following interpretation of
the terminology set forth in the claims (as they appear in the
appendix to the brief). With respect to claims 13 and 14, in
lines 4 and 8 of claim 13, and line 7 of claim 14, we interpret
"mounting block" to be -- mounting post --. With respect to
claim 18, in lines 14 and 17 we interpret "the first mounting
post" to be -- the mounting post --; in lines 15 and 16 we
interpret "the first panel" to be -- the panel --; and in line
16 we interpret "the notch" to be -- the notch end --.
Each of the above-noted rejections is bottomed on the
examiner's position that:
It . . . would have been obvious to one having
ordinary skill in the art to center Myers's [sic,
Myers'] panel section one [sic, on] the post section,
so that a more aesthetically pleasing, physically
balanced wall section would be created; note that
centering the panel with respect to the post provides
a functionally equivalent wall structure, since the
interconnection of adjacent wall sections is not
affected by "shifting" the location of the panel from
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