Appeal No. 2003-0161
Application No. 09/578,575
beverages, including a size which is large enough that the box is
capable of holding at least small crates of milk.
The appellants’ claim 18 requires “means for cooling and
maintaining the milk at an effective temperature for consumption
without using ice or electricity.” This means includes the
corresponding structure in the specification and equivalents
thereof. See Donaldson, 16 F.3d at 1195, 29 USPQ2d at 1850. For
Hotta’s structure to be equivalent to that of the appellants, the
differences must be insubstantial, i.e., Hotta’s structure and
the appellants’ structure must perform the same function in
substantially the same way to produce substantially the same
result. See Odetics Inc. v. Storage Technology Corp., 185 F.3d
1259, 1267, 51 USPQ2d 1225, 1230 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
The structure in the appellants’ specification which
corresponds to the means for cooling and maintaining the milk at
an effective temperature for consumption without using ice or
electricity is freezer panels positioned within the container,
adjacent to the food or beverage items (page 3, line 2;
figure 2). The only disclosed freezer panels are made of blow
molded thermoplastic material filled with an approximately
2% saline solution (page 6, lines 8-12).
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