Appeal No. 2003-0673
Application 09/795,307
lower ends of the handle as having spaced ring ridges. Conceding
that O’Malley does not respond to these limitations, the examiner
turns to Weck.
Weck discloses a cart designed to transport household items
such as groceries, beverages and wearing apparel. The cart 20
comprises a base 22, four caster assemblies 24, 26, 28 and 30, an
inverted U-shaped handle 44, and receptacles 32, 34, 36 and 38 in
the base for selectively receiving the lower ends of the handle’s
vertical legs 40 and 42. As shown in Figure 7, and more clearly
in Figure 10, each of the lower ends of the vertical legs
includes a flange 102 having a radially extending ear 106 which
engages the upper face of the base and a spring-biased button 94
which engages the lower face of a washer 108 fixed to the bottom
face of the base to retain the leg within a receptacle.
In proposing to combine O’Malley and Weck to reject claims 5
and 6, and claim 7 which depends from claim 6, the examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made “to modify
the handle of O’Malley with the improvement of a handle as taught
by Weck et al. to provide ring ridges which are able (easily) to
release the handle, for convenience” (answer, page 5). It is not
entirely clear from this explanation how the examiner is
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