Appeal No. 2001-0210 Page 6
Application No. 08/560,675
and it is opened and closed by moving the work surfaces and/or the front panels. Thus,
Hoffman fails to disclose or teach this limitation of the claim.
Newhouse was cited by the examiner only for teaching constructing a counterline of
a series of modules, a feature which, incidentally, already is present in Hoffman
(translation, page 8). Be that as it may, it is our view that Newhouse fails to overcome the
above-noted deficiency in the Hoffman reference. Thus, the combined teachings of
Hoffman and Newhouse fail to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with regard to
the subject matter recited in claim 40, and we will not sustain the rejection of claim 40 or, it
follows, of dependent claims 22, 25 and 26.
Independent claim 27 stands rejected on the same basis. This claim requires, inter
alia, “opposed side frames interconnected by at least one upwardly opening channel
member located adjacent a front of said counterline” (emphasis added). The channel
member is attached to side frames 2 and 3 by means of a sliding connection at the top of
each side frame (elements 15 and 16) and a folding connection at the bottom (element
28), which allow it to be moved between closed (Figure 1) and open (Figure 2) positions.
However, from our perspective, these sliding and folding links do not cause the channel
member to “interconnect” the side frames to one another; that is accomplished by the
unnumbered beams, as explained above. This being the case, we therefore also will not
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007