Appeal No. 2000-1651
Application No. 08/871,923
Bergquist are, however, made of wire rather than tubing. The
ends of the racks are coupled together by bolts 21 passing
through eyes 20 at the ends of the longitudinal members.
Where the cable support changes direction (diverges), as at
33, 37 or 38 in Fig. 1, a rack may be bent and its ends
coupled to the ends of the two diverging racks. The examiner
states the basis of the rejection as (answer, page 8):
Burke teaches that it is known to have upper and
lower support members (24 and 25) being metal tubes.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary
skill in the art at the time of the invention to
have modified Bergquist to have made the upper and
lower support members of metal tubes for purpose of
reducing the amount of material being used
therefore cost effective.
We will not sustain this rejection. In the first place,
Bergquist so emphasizes the advantages of making the rack out
of wire (see, e.g., col. 1, lines 54 to 72, and col. 3, lines
5 to 7) that we do not believe that one of ordinary skill
would have been motivated to substitute tubing for wire.
Moreover, Burke does not disclose bending the tubular
longitudinal members, in fact, it is not clear how Burke's
support system would be routed around a corner, other than by
using a connection as shown in Fig. 4. Also, it is not
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