Appeal No. 98-3291
Application 08/534,705
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to substitute
a tree stand like that seen at (17) in Lorenzana for the tree
stand (30) of Copenhaver.
Appellant’s argument (brief, page 10) that there is no
suggestion whatsoever to combine the tree stand and vacuum
dispensing system of Lorenzana with the unusual tree stand and
different system of Copenhaver, is unpersuasive. This
argument appears to entirely miss the point of the examiner’s
rejection, which is that only the tree stand (17) of Lorenzana
is to be substituted for the tree stand (30) of Copenhaver,
thereby resulting in a Christmas tree watering device as set
forth in appellant’s claim 8 on appeal. While we understand
that the systems as a whole in Lorenzana and Copenhaver are
somewhat different from one another, we see no reason to
conclude that it would have been unobvious to one of ordinary
skill in this art at the time of appellant’s invention to
substitute one type of tree stand for another as the examiner
has done in this rejection, and we note that appellant has
provided no argument supporting the
8
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