Appeal No. 1998-3413 Application No. 08/512,782 design choice, is unsupported speculation and impermissibly reads the above express limitations out of appellant’s claim 11. At the very least, the above construction set forth in appellant’s claim 11 on appeal would strengthen the rim of the pot and permit the type of nested storage seen in Figure 3 of the application, while the configuration of the pot seen in Coleman clearly would not. Accordingly, the examiner’s rejection of claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. � 103(a) based on Coleman is not sustained. The examiner’s rejection of claims 13 through 17 under 35 U.S.C. � 103(a) based on Coleman in view of "the state of the art," is sustained. Essentially we agree with the examiner (answer, pages 5-6) that the collar or ring member (10) of Coleman is tapered and dimension at the central rim area (13) so as to permit the nesting of another container member of some given size and corresponding shape in the opening in the collar or ring member (10) and so that the side wall of the second container is in nesting, abutting relationship to the interior of the side wall of the container (18), and that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary 14Page: Previous 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007