Appeal No. 2000-1666
Application 08/754,245
F.2d 1468, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
Appellant has submitted five declarations, i.e., from
Stanley C. Valiulis, Robert W. Harrell, Carol Hopson, Theodore
J. Stipanovich, and Frank N. Shope. According to the examiner
(answer, page 14), those declarations are entitled to little
weight because 1) there is no showing that others of ordinary
skill in the art were working on the problem and if so, for
how long; and 2) there is no showing that persons skilled in
the art who were presumably working on the problem knew of the
teachings of the above cited references (Thalenfeld and
Petrou) and still were unable to solve the problem.
On the whole, our evaluation of the evidence submitted by
appellant reveals clear evidence of the existence of a
labeling problem associated with merchandising display
supports recognized in the merchandising industry for a long
period of time and also that efforts have been made, for many
years, by those who design and sell such merchandising
supports, as well as by those who use such supports, to solve
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