Appeal No. 2003-0101
Application No. 09/661,520
his/her ear, expecting to hear the sound of the ocean, in
accordance with lore, what is heard is a digitally encoded
artificial sound which could be, for example, the roar of a lion,
or a recorded spoken message such as, “Get your ear out of my
house.”
Representative independent claim 1 is reproduced as follows:
1. A novelty or entertainment device comprising:
a housing in the form of a sea shell;
a sound reproduction system mounted to said housing so as to
remain hidden from casual visual inspection of said housing; and
a switch mounted to said housing and operatively connected
to said sound reproduction system for activating same after and
only after a lifting of said housing to an ear of a user.
The examiner relies on the following references:
Curran 4,923,428 May 08, 1990
Saitoh 5,316,516 May 31, 1994
Claims 1-18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. As
evidence of obviousness, the examiner offers Saitoh with regard
to claims 1-5, 7-12 and 14-16, adding Curran with regard to
claims 6, 13, 17 and 18.
Reference is made to the briefs and answer for the
respective positions of appellant and the examiner.
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