Appeal No. 2001-1768 Page 5
Application No. 09/285,787
The examiner’s reasoning is untenable on its face. There simply is no evidence
supporting the examiner’s opinion that PLEXIGLAS is “flexible” and, from our perspective,
the analogy to the walls of a hockey arena undermines that opinion, rather than supporting
it. Moreover, as is pointed out by the appellant in the Reply Brief, it is a structural
requirement of the flexible sheet that it be flexible enough to allow the items in one frame to
intrude into the space of the other frame. Therefore, even if one were to accept at face
value the examiner’s statement that PLEXIGLAS is flexible enough to be used as the wall
in a hockey arena, it still would not meet the requirements of the claim that it allow the
stored items in one frame to intrude into the other. Moreover, as the appellant also has
argued in the Briefs, the examiner has provided no reason why one of ordinary skill in the
art would have been motivated to modify the LeSage cabinet in such a manner as to meet
the terms of the claim, that is, to replace the transparent panels (46) of LeSage with their
soft resilient material (84) for holding the jewelry articles separated from one another with
the claimed flexible sheet.
It is our conclusion that the combined teachings of LeSage, Ellingsworth and Ball fail to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the subject matter recited in
claim 1, and we therefore will not sustain the rejection of claim 1 or, it follows, of dependent
claims 2-4, 7, 8 and 10, which stand rejected on the same basis.
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