Appeal No. 2005-0844 4
Application No. 10/397,807
noted power and communications assembly is a particular circuit, such as a USB hub,
that is configured to split, produce or redirect a bi-directional signal.
To account for this difference, the examiner points to Farrant urging that this
patent teaches the combination of a power receptacle with a USB hub that is configured
to split, produce or redirect a bi-directional signal. Based on the combined teachings of
McCarthy and Farrant, the examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art at the time of appellants’ invention “to incorporate a USB hub
into the assembly of McCarthy to update the computer connections and eliminate the
need for a separate USB hub, reducing the number of items on the worksurface”
(answer, page 3).
Appellants do not challenge the combination as posited by the examiner, but
urge instead that the combination does not result in an assembly having “a lower
housing having a clamp receiving interface and a bottom access opening” (emphasis in
original, brief, page 7). More particularly, appellants contend that “[c]ontrary to the
Examiner’s declaration that McCarthy has a bottom access opening through which
electrical cord 6 extends, the disclosure indicates that compartment 60 is open at the
rear, [and that] as such there is no bottom access opening” (brief, page 8).
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