Appeal No. 1999-0614 Page 11
Application No. 08/804,410
shown in Figures 1 and 3, such that, in use, the arms (6,8)
extend behind an upper and lower protruding link of one of the
diamond-shaped holes of a chain link fence (1) and the
remaining two arms (7,9) extend in front of the remaining
upper and lower inwardly recessed links within the same
diamond-shaped hole. The bracket disclosed by Veenstra is
reusable and pocket-sized (column 3, lines 9 to 19).
It is the examiner's position that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the
appellant's invention to replace the Nugent mounting members
(i.e., the staple or adhesive) with the bracket disclosed by
Veenstra "in order to releasably secure the planks to the
fence". Further, according to the examiner, modification of
the slats of Nugent to provide upper slanted surface edges and
vertical outer surfaces simulating the appearance of a wooden
fence in both surface grain and color would have been a mere
design choice, as "no engineering advantages have been
disclosed" for forming the fence planks as claimed (final
rejection, page 4).
We agree with the appellant, for the reasons stated on
pages 11 and 12 of the brief, that the combined teachings of
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