Appeal No. 2001-0680
Application No. 09/141,637
(1) claim 9, unpatentable over Hawkins, Ritter and Moore;
(2) claims 1, 3 and 4, unpatentable over Hawkins, Ritter and
Moore as applied in the rejection of claim 9, and further in view
of Luders; and
(3) claim 8, unpatentable over Hawkins, Ritter, Moore and
Luders as applied in the rejection of claim 1 et al., and further
in view of Klinger.
Discussion
Concerning the basic combination of Hawkins, Ritter and Moore,
the examiner contends that it would have been obvious in Hawkins to
support the funnel shaped cover A thereof utilizing both the
container floor (as in Figure 5) and the container rim (as in
Figure 2), and that when this is done, the resulting hybrid chamber
pot and cover combination would “teach[] all claimed elements
except for the seat extending ‘inwardly away’ from the container
side wall, and for the container floor including a raised portion”
(answer, page 4). However, the examiner considers that it would
have been obvious to inwardly extend the “rim/seat” of Hawkins’
funnel shaped cover “in order to provide better, wider, user
2(...continued)
answer as was done here. However, in light of our determination
that the examiner’s foundation combination of Hawkins, Ritter and
Moore is not sound, the above procedural error is mute.
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