Appeal No. 2004-1696
Application 09/988,181
disclosed by Haltenhoff are the functional equivalent of the claimed flowerpots and finds no
criticality with respect to shape and size in appellant’s specification (answer, pages 3-4).
Appellant replies that the claimed geometric configuration (1) minimizes flowerpot
volume for transport and storage and (2) maximizes visual appearance of potted plants (reply
brief, pages 1-2). With respect to these characteristics, appellant points out that with the non-
square rectangular top, the “adjacent flowerpots [support] one another,” and compared to “a
square top of equal frontal dimension, more flowerpots of the invention can be transported or
stored in a given horizontal space” and, for viewing, “the front dimension [is] perpendicular to
the field of view of the purchaser” (id., page 2). Appellant further points out that the elliptical
based decreases the volume of soil used, and simplifies injection molding in manufacture as well
as stacking empty pots (id.).
We determine that one of ordinary skill in this art would have found in the teachings of
Haltenhoff the reasonable suggestion that other shapes and sizes of flowerpots can be formed
following the teachings of the reference. Indeed, the mere expansion, however small, of the
dimensions of two opposing parallel sides of the preferred pot of Haltenhoff would result in a
non-square rectangular top, and the extension of a curve of the round base of the preferred pot,
however small, would result in an ellipse, which is all that appealed claim 1 requires. Indeed,
such minor changes could be the result of minor deviations from the preferred flowerpot in
forming the pot following the teachings of the references. Accordingly, one of ordinary skill in
this art routinely following the teachings of Haltenhoff would have arrived at the claimed
flowerpot without recourse to appellant’s specification.
Indeed, we are of the view that one of ordinary skill would have expected that pots with
minor shape and size deviations from the preferred pots of the reference would still have the
same or similar characteristics taught for the disclosed pots by Haltenhoff, the teachings of
which, as we pointed out above, are not limited to the preferred pots. In this respect, we have
considered the characteristics attributed to the claimed pots in the reply brief. However, we fail
to find in such arguments alleging unexpected results any comparison between the claimed pots
and the preferred pots of Haltenhoff, and thus such arguments of counsel are entitled to little, if
any, weight. See In re Lindner, 457 F.2d 506, 508, 173 USPQ 356, 358 (CCPA 1972) (“This
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