Appeal No. 2001-0205 Page 7
Application No. 08/692,016
Claim 17 stands rejected on the basis of Tobin and Flagg, taken further with
Beckham. Claim 17 is directed to a method of retaining a trash bag, and it defines the
structure recited in claim 1 regarding the knots and the securing of the knots within the slits.
The combined teachings of Tobin and Flagg fail to render this claim obvious for the
reasons expressed above with claims 1, 13, and 16. Beckham, which was cited for
teaching making frames of plastic, was cited against this claim because of the
requirement that the frame be “unitarily molded.” Be that as it may, Beckham fails to
alleviate the shortcomings in the other two references, and therefore the rejection of claim
3
17 cannot be sustained. We reach the same conclusion with regard to claims 6 and 7,
which depend from claim 1 and also are rejected on Tobin, Flagg and Beckham.
Finally, claims 8 and 9, which depend from claim 1, stand rejected on the basis of
Tobin, Flagg and Berger, the latter being cited for teaching using metal for a frame. As
was the case with Beckham, Berger fails to cure the defect with the other two references,
and the rejection is not sustained.
New Rejections By The Board
3What appears clearly to be an inadvertent error appears in claim 17, in that the
first step of claim 17 recites “knotting at least two areas of a peripheral edge of a trash
bag,” whereas the final step of the claim refers to “said knotted portions” (emphasis
added). This is worthy of correction.
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