Appeal No. 1999-2446 Page 22
Application No. 08/705,592
Claim 12 recites that the wood fragments are "not
retained by a separation screen having a screen opening of
about 1½ inch, so that the wood fragments within the container
are smaller than 1½ inch." Once again the examiner has not
provided any evidence as to why it would have been obvious at
the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary
skill in the art to have modified the size of the wood
fragments to be smaller than 1½ inch. Since the examiner has
not established that the subject matter of claim 12 would have
been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the decision of the
examiner to reject claim 12 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Scott is reversed.
Claim 13
Claim 13 adds to parent claim 6 the limitation that the
container comprises a plastic mesh. Since this limitation is
clearly not met by Scott, the examiner determined (answer, p.
7) that "the particular material from which the mesh is made
is considered to be a matter of obvious choice because one
skilled in the art would have knowledge of the use of plastic
Page: Previous 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007