Appeal No. 2000-1202 Page 5
Application No. 08/982616
loading position and filled with panels. The loaded boxes then are closed, sealed and
moved to a palletizer.
Two key requirements of the appellants’ claim 1 are that the panel packing and
folding machine be “unitary,” and that the box folding section be positioned “generally
adjacent” to the panel receiving section. The common definition of “unitary“ is “having the
character of a unit,” that is, “undivided” or “whole,” and of “adjacent” is “not distant,” “having
3
a common endpoint or border,” “immediately preceding or following.” The appellants
describe the orientation of the box folding section and the panel packing section in the
specification in a manner which is in accord with these definitions. It is abundantly clear to
us from the portion of the description quoted above that in the Fluent system the box
folding section is not “unitary” with the panel receiving section. Nor, in our view, can it be
considered to be “generally adjacent” thereto, in view of the fact that the assembled boxes
are moved in a wheeled cart from the box folding section to the container packing area.
This also establishes that box “blanks” are not present at the panel receiving section, and
thus there is no means for folding box blanks at that location, as is recited in the claim.
Fluent thus does not disclose or teach some of the structure recited in claim 1, and
therefore cannot be anticipatory thereof. This being the case, we will not sustain the
rejection of claim 1 or, it follows, of claims 2 and 4, which depend therefrom.
3See, for example, Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, 1996,
pages 14 and 1293.
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