Appeal No. 2001-0205 Page 5
Application No. 08/692,016
conveying vehicle in which a frame holds a trash bag open by engaging knots tied in the
peripheral edge of the bag with slots in the frame (see Figure 2). It is the examiner’s
position that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to tie knots in the
peripheral edge of the Tobin trash bag in view of the teaching of Flagg, to provide a more
secure attachment of the bag to the frame. We do not agree with the examiner’s
conclusion on the basis that no suggestion exists to combine Tobin and Flagg in the
manner proposed. In the Tobin arrangement the bag is held upright and is not suspended
from the frame, and the frame is provided with additional slots 26 to accommodate taller
bags. Tobin teaches that “a part of the plastic bag 16 may be drawn through the body of
the teardrop [hole] and then pulled downwards, thus frictionally securing the bag into the
plastic bag holding slot 24” (column 4, lines 59-63). Therefore, it is sufficient for Tobin to
hold the edge of the bag frictionally in the slit, from which we conclude that the artisan
would not have been motivated to add the knot for lack of any perceived necessity to do
so, that is, there is no evidence that such would be an improvement or would otherwise
solve a problem with the Tobin system. It should further be noted that, unlike Tobin, Flagg
utilizes a slot rather than a slit and requires the presence of a knot to insure that the
periphery of the bag is retained in the slot, which is unnecessary in the Tobin arrangement,
where it is clamped within a slit. Moreover, even if suggestion to combine were found to
be present, the resulting combination would not yield the invention recited in the claim, for
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