Appeal No. 2005-0340 4
Application No. 10/098,105
respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we have made the determinations which follow.
With regard to the examiner’s rejection of claims 16 through 18, 21, 23, 25, 26
and 28 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Sands, we have reviewed the
applied Sands patent and, like appellants, find no teaching or disclosure therein of a
“screwless method of locking a circuit board on a support structure” as set forth in claim
16 on appeal including the step of “releasably preventing an unlocking movement of the
circuit board relative to the support structure via a latchable panel.” In our opinion, the
examiner’s attempt to read the “latchable panel” of appellants’ claim 16 on the access
panel (119) of Sands is unreasonable and ignores the fact that claim 16 as a whole is
directed to “[a] screwless method of locking a circuit board on a support structure.” As
noted in column 6, lines 44-54 of Sands, the access panel (119) seen in Figure 1 and
which prevents the circuit board (130) from shifting inadvertently and perhaps
disengaging from the circuit board mounts (112), is fastened in place “with a couple of
screws or bolts in the conventional manner.” Thus, it is clear that the method of locking
a circuit board on a support structure taught in Sands is not a “screwless method” like
that in appellants’ claim 16.
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