Appeal No. 1998-1357
Application No. 08/348,744
a supporting means or structure 14 by bolts 15 placed through
apertures in the feet. The examiner concluded that:
[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to have employed the steel outer
shell and spacer teaching set forth in Kettlewell,
motivated by the weather protection afforded
thereby, and horizontal top support teaching set
forth in Pritchard, motivated by the strength
achieved thereby, and the bottom support teaching
set forth in Setzekorn, et. al., motivated by the
spacing above ground level of the outer shell bottom
achieved thereby, and the mounting aperture teaching
set forth in Mapes, motivated by the ability to
securely mount the structure achieved
thereby, in the construction of the encased tank of
Lindquist, et. al.” (answer, pages 3-4).
We are not in agreement with the examiner's reasoning.
Since it is clear to us that Lindquist shows a two layer,
above ground storage tank, we agree with appellants that
[a]lthough the Lindquist et al. tank had two of the
three layers of the present invention (inner tank
and concrete insulation), the transition to the
three layer structure as presently claimed was
nonobvious and involved far more complexity than
simply adding an
outer shell to the existing Lindquist et al. tank
(answer, page 26).
And,
[a] skilled artisan reading Kettlewell would not be
motivated to place an outer shell around the
concrete of the Lindquist et al. gasoline storage
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