Appeal No. 2005-1476 Page 6
Application No. 10/174,555
making the specific combination that was made by the
applicant [citations omitted].
Neither Beasley’s teaching of hook and loop fasteners for holding together a plurality of
separate containers containing personal care commodities nor Sharkey’s teaching of an
adhesive fastening an auxiliary condiment container to an associated foodstuff
container provides any teaching or suggestion to replace the hanger arrangement of
Waterston with either type of fastener. Waterston’s receptacles are intended to provide
a modular waste disposal receptacle system such that the primary and secondary
receptacles can be selectively and alternately utilized by placing the secondary
receptacles in a freestanding position in close proximity to the primary wastebasket, in
hanging engagement on the primary wastebasket, or in a stacked and nested
configuration within the primary wastebasket (column 1, lines 48-56). The securement
of the secondary receptacles to the primary wastebasket using either a hook and loop
fastener or an adhesive fastener would hinder the user’s ability to easily move the
receptacles between hanging or nested configurations and freestanding configurations
and thus would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
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