Appeal No. 2000-1649
Application No. 08/951,077
Claim 14 does not contain any limitations concerning the
profile of the outer housing. It reads:
An improved vandal-resistant paper towel
dispenser for public washrooms, comprising:
means for storing and dispensing paper
towels;
an outer housing for encasing said storing
and dispensing means;
an access door defined in said outer
housing for loading paper towels into the
dispenser;
a concealed locking and release mechanism
for opening said access door; and
a non-operative decoy locking mechanism
that is at least as visible than [sic: as] said
concealed locking and release mechanism, whereby
vandals intent on opening the dispenser will be
confused.
Richardson discloses a paper towel handling unit having a
housing 21 with an upper towel dispensing cavity 29 and a
lower cavity receiving a waste bin 23. Both cavities are
covered by a door 1 which is locked to the housing by upper
and lower locking members 7, 9. The examiner states at page 7
of the answer:
Voss et al. . . . teaches of [sic] a paper towel
dispenser having only one lock. Richardson
employs two locking devices (7 & 9), one of
which can be considered a "decoy locking
mechanism" so far as defined. As depicted in
figure 4, when door (1) is closed, lock 7 [the
primary lock] engages member (32) of the housing
frame thereby locking the door to the housing
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007