Appeal No. 2004-0314
Application No. 09/965,496
position” (col. 3, lines 46-52). The examiner argues that it
appears that all plastic parts of Wewetzer’s compact are made of
the same plastic and that, consequently, the pintle and the plug
have the same resiliency as the rib and the locking groove
(answer, pages 5-6). The examiner’s argument is deficient in
that the examiner has not established that 1) an amount of
resiliency which is sufficient for engaging the rib with the
locking groove is sufficient for removing the pintle from the
plug’s slotted channels without breaking the pintle or the plug,
and 2) the ability of the pintle to be removed from the plug
without breaking the pintle or the plug depends only upon the
resiliency of the plastic, rather than also depending upon other
factors such as the relative sizes of the pintle’ diameter and
the plug’s slotted channel openings and the thickness of the
plastic at the slotted channel openings. The examiner has not
provided evidence or technical reasoning which shows that factors
such as Wewetzer’s relative pintle diameter/slotted channel
opening sizes and the plastic thickness around the channel’s
slotted openings necessarily are such that there is sufficiently
resiliency that the pintle can be removed from the plug’s slotted
channels without breaking the pintle or the plug.
The examiner points out that Wewetzer states that “[a]
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