Appeal No. 2002-2107 Page 7
Application No. 09/160,085
Implicit in this rejection is the examiner's view that the above noted modifications
of Williams would result in an apparatus which corresponds to the apparatus recited in
claim 1 in all respects.
The appellant argues that the combination of Williams, Domingo and Peterson
would on its face lead a person of ordinary skill in the art to the picture depicted on
page 7 of the brief. The appellant then contends that only by distortion and/or hindsight
would a person of ordinary skill in the art consider the entire upper portion of Williams'
back plate 10 to be a hanger portion as claimed. We do not agree.
In our view, the claimed hanger portion (i.e., a hanger portion of equal width to
and coextensively formed with the upper edge of said primary support wall, said hanger
portion solely supporting a weight of said supply rack) is readable on3 both the picture
depicted on page 7 of the brief and the back wall 10 of Williams. In that regard, the
upper portion of the back wall 10 of Williams (i.e., that portion of the back wall 10 above
the brackets 11) clearly has a width equal to and coextensively formed with the upper
edge of the lower portion of the back wall 10 (i.e., that portion of the back wall 10
between the brackets 11). Thus, the claimed primary support wall is readable on the
3 It is only necessary that a claimed limitation "'read on" something disclosed in the reference to
be met by it. See Kalman v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 713 F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ 781, 789 (Fed. Cir.
1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1026 (1984).
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