Appeal No. 2001-0073
Application 08/966,894
not reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the
inventor was involved, which is stated to be the "problem of
excess waste, high manufacturing cost, and the lack of user
friendliness of prior art large volume ink supply systems and
their components" (Br7-8).
The examiner finds that McAffer is analogous as evidenced by
the fact that McAffer is classified in Class 141, directed to
"fluent material handling," and that U.S. Patent 5,495,877 to
Schwenk (front page attached to the examiner's answer), directed
to filling an ink jet cartridge, is also classified in Class 141
(EA3-4). (The examiner further states that the end product of
appellants' invention and Erickson are the same and that the
claimed invention is merely an obvious rearrangement of the parts
in Erickson (EA4-5); however, this reasoning goes to the issue of
obviousness rather than nonanalogous art.)
Appellants respond that the field of endeavor is ink jet
printing, not fluid handling, and that the problems associated
with and solved by appellants' invention are different from those
addressed in McAffer and, so, McAffer is not analogous (RBr1-2).
Patent and Trademark Office classification is inherently
weak evidence of analogous and nonanalogous prior art. See
In re Mlot-Fijalkowski, 676 F.2d 666, 669 n.5, 213 USPQ 713,
715 n.5 (CCPA 1982). Thus, the examiner's reasoning about
classification is not persuasive. Nevertheless, we find that
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