Appeal No. 2004-0697
Application No. 09/950,535
facilitates transporting various items of cargo while being
sufficiently lightweight and collapsible to be routinely stored
in an automobile trunk or other limited storage space.
In proposing to combine Messier and Smith to reject claim
12, the examiner submits that
[b]ased on the teachings of Smith, it would have been
obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the
time the invention was made to modify the table of
Messier to replace the means for attaching the handle
to allow the handle to pivot more than 180 degrees from
an operative position to an inoperative position
adjacent the underside of the table and a means for
releasably locking the handle in the inoperative and
operative position[s] to permit hidden stowage of the
handle and to provide ease in transporting various
items of cargo, while being sufficiently lightweight
and collapsible to be routinely stored in an automobile
trunk or other limited storage space, as taught in
Smith in column 1, lines 46-51 [answer, page 4].
Given the relatively bulky and non-collapsible nature of
Messier’s main casing 10, however, the Messier table/wagon
combination is not particularly amenable to hidden stowage of the
pull handle 36 adjacent the underside of the casing. Moreover,
even if modified in view of Smith in the manner proposed, the
Messier combination would not be any more lightweight and
collapsible than it already is, and hence would not be more
readily stored in an automobile trunk or other limited space.
Furthermore, even as so modified, Messier’s table/wagon would not
have a handle whose operative position is above the top surface
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