Appeal No. 2001-0205 Page 4
Application No. 08/692,016
The first of the examiner’s rejections is that claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 9 and 13-16 would
2
have been obvious in view of the combined teachings of Tobin and Flagg.
Independent claim 1 is directed to a device for holding open and facilitating the
filling of a trash bag. Among the structure recited is a frame having opposite sidewalls,
each of which provided with a hole having a longitudinal slit extending therefrom. Also
recited is a trash bag having an open mouth and comprising at least two knots tied in the
peripheral edge of the open mouth, the size of the holes being such that the knots can pass
through, and the knots “being drawn through said holes within said opposite sidewalls of
said frame and securely but detachably retained in said corresponding slits of said holes.”
Tobin discloses a frame for holding a trash bag open. The frame includes opposite
sidewalls with each having a hole with a slit extending therefrom. Flagg discloses a refuse
2The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would
have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller,
642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie case
of obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner to provide a reason why one of ordinary
skill in the art would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to combine reference
teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973
(Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some
teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure.
See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp.,
837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825
(1988).
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