Appeal No. 2001-1844
Application No. 09/178,951
leftover food containers in their refrigerators, indicating
the date upon which the container was placed in the
refrigerator. Representative independent claim 1 can be found
in Paper No. 4, filed April 10, 2000.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the
examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are:
Namisniak et al. 5,711,160 Jan 27, 1998
(Namisniak ‘160)
Johnson 5,934,707 Aug. 10, 1999
(filed May 30, 1997)
Claims 1 through 5 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) as being unpatentable over Namisniak ‘160 in view of
Johnson. On page 3 for the answer, the examiner has set forth
her position that
Namisniak ‘160 teaches a food organization system
including marker means 22 attached to the lid of a
food storage container and calendar means (Figures 1
and 2) which correlates with the markers. The date
upon which a food storage container was placed
inside the refrigerator can be ascertained by
matching the marker means to the calendar.
Namisniak ‘160 does not teach the use of magnets as
the marker system, however, this is common in the
art. Johnson teaches using magnetic means to attach
2
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