Appeal No. 2000-0206 Page 16
Application No. 08/699,328
driver should travel to reach the stop sign). The arrow by
itself would not denote "stop" or stop sign and thus is unrelated
to both the octagon symbol and the information provided by the
octagon symbol.
While it may be true that the arrow on the Lectric Lites
sign can be viewed as providing information which is construed as
related to the octagon and the stop or stop sign information
conveyed by the octagon, in that the arrow provides the driver
with information as to the direction the driver should travel to
reach the stop sign, this does not change the fact that, for the
reasons discussed supra, the information provided by the arrow is
also unrelated to the octagon and information provided thereby,
when viewed in a different context.4 From my perspective, the
term "unrelated" cannot reasonably be interpreted, consistently
with appellant's specification, as requiring more than this.
Thus, unlike my colleagues, I am not persuaded that Lectric Lites
4 Indeed, I cannot discern a meaningful distinction between
the relationship of the symbols in appellant's disclosed
embodiment and that in Lectric Lites within the context of the
claimed invention. In this regard, the examiner's observations
on page 4 of the answer are well taken. The determination of
whether any two items are related or unrelated is, as evidenced
herein, a matter of interpretation.
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