Appeal No. 2005-1476 Page 3
Application No. 10/174,555
January 12, 2004) and reply brief (filed May 12, 2004) for the appellant's arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. For the reasons
which follow, neither of the examiner's rejections can be sustained.
Independent claim 1 recites, inter alia, an open top trash receptacle, a trash bag
container having front and rear walls and "means [for] connecting the rear wall of the
trash bag container to the receptacle to position the rear wall of the container in abutting
contacting relation with a side wall of the receptacle." This claim reads on the
embodiments illustrated in appellant's Figures 1 and 2, wherein the trash bag container
21 or 40 "is secured to the side wall 12 of the trash receptacle by a suitable adhesive
material such as an epoxy or similar cementitious material" (specification, page 4).
The examiner has taken the position that the "means [for] connecting the rear
wall of the trash bag container to the receptacle to position the rear wall of the container
in abutting contacting relation with a side wall of the receptacle" is not a means-plus-
function recitation under 35 U.S.C. § 112, sixth paragraph, because the word "for" does
not directly follow the word "means" in the claim (answer, page 6). This position is not
well taken. As set forth in Signtech USA Ltd. v. Vutek Inc., 174 F.3d 1352, 1356, 50
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