Appeal No. 2000-1202 Page 4
Application No. 08/982616
panels from the panel receiving station. Claim 1, along with dependent claims 2 and 4,
1
stands rejected as being anticipated by Fluent.
Fluent was cited by the appellants on page 2 of their specification as being
representative of the type of prior art system over which they believe their invention to be
an improvement. This reference discloses separate machines for folding the boxes and
for filling them with panels. As shown in Figure 1 and explained in columns 3 and 4, box
2
blanks (10) having predetermined score lines are received at a container folding area (A)
where they are pre-folded before being passed to a forming area (B) to be erected and
have the end flaps glued. At this juncture, a plurality of erected boxes are stacked one on
top of another
and moved to area C, as by a wheeled cart, to the container storage and
transfer section 300 of the panel packer/tray closer 35 for packing with a
predetermined number of panels 33, as each issues from extrusion
operations 32 (column 4, lines 54-58, emphasis added).
As shown and described with regard to Figures 3 and 3A, a stack of boxes is placed on a
platform (303) on the panel packer unit, whereupon they are individually moved into the
1Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, either
expressly or under the principles of inherency, each and every element of the claimed
invention. See, for example, In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480-1481, 31 USPQ2d 1671,
1675 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
2As explained in Fluent, a “blank” is a flat, substantially rectangular sheet of material
(column 3, line 47).
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