Appeal No. 1998-1912
Application No. 08/780,744
the reference is reasonably pertinent to the particular
problem with which the inventor is involved. Id.
We are informed in the paragraph spanning pages 2 and 3
of appellants’ specification that a particular problem of
prior art devices for severing and manipulating blanks that
can be used to form parts of cigarette packages is that the
blanks must be advanced along a complex path on their way into
the receptacle of a turntable, and that this increases the
likelihood of misalignment, undesirable deformation of the
blank, etc. Appellants’ solution to this problem is to
transfer the blanks along a substantially straight path
(specification, page 6, lines 9-15). In that an objective of
Knudsen is to transfer the severed lids along a substantially
straight path as they are severed, manipulated and introduced
into lids (see Figures 11(a) to 11(e)), Knudsen is reasonably
pertinent to the particular problem addressed by appellants.
Thus, Knudsen constitutes analogous art under at least the
second criteria of the Clay test, and was properly considered
by the examiner in evaluating the obviousness of the subject
matter on appeal.
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