Appeal No. 2001-0680
Application No. 09/141,637
Hawkins or Ritter or Moore, and the examiner has pointed to no such
teaching or suggestion, that would indicate that these alternative
constructions should be combined, or that either one alone is
inadequate for its intended purpose of supporting and positioning
the cover relative to the chamber pot. Simply put, nothing in
Hawkins or Ritter or Moore teaches or suggests providing a “seat”
that would be supported at both the rim and bottom of the container
in use, as now claimed. For this reason alone, the standing
rejection of claim 9 cannot be sustained.
Moreover, we also do not agree with the examiner that it would
have been obvious to extend the rim of the initially modified
funnel shaped cover of the Figure 5 embodiment of Hawkins inwardly
away from the container side wall in view of Ritter. One reason
for our disagreement with the examiner on this point is that we do
not regard the Ritter device as being “an analogous potty” (answer,
page 5) with respect to Hawkins. As is made clear from a reading
of the attached translation of Ritter, this reference pertains to a
container for holding waste matter of a domestic animal such as a
cat. Thus, the Ritter device is more akin to a litter box than the
chamber pot of Hawkins. In view of the intended use of Ritter as a
waste management device for a domestic animal such as a cat,
wherein the cover is apparently configured to allow the animal to
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