Appeal No. 1999-2632
Application 08/707,097
17) for the respective positions of the appellants and the
examiner regarding the merits of this rejection.
Tieke, the examiner’s primary reference, discloses a
tablet dispenser which is similar in many respects to the
tablet dispenser disclosed and claimed by the appellants. The
central issue in this appeal involves the undisputed failure
of Tieke to teach or suggest structure responsive to the
limitations in the claims corresponding to the appellants’
resilient resetting cover 3. These limitations take different
forms in the five independent claims on appeal, to wit: “a
cover . . . having an upwardly concave curved portion and
composed of a resilient material having structural memory to
reset after being pushed” (claims 9 and 32); “a resiliently
resetting press portion . . . sealingly connected to the
housing and resiliently movable relative thereto” (claim 18);
“a cover . . . having an upwardly concave curved portion of
soft-elastic plastic material . . . wherein the upwardly
concave curved portion of the cover acts as a resilient
restoring element for the dispenser element” (claim 24); and
4
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