Appeal No. 2005-1539 10
Application No. 09/799,275
The remaining rejections on appeal involve claims 6 and 20, each of which is
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), claim 6 as being unpatentable over Latour in view of
Barker and Gremillion, and claim 20 as being unpatentable over Barker in view of
Gremillion. In each instance, the examiner has concluded that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of appellants’ invention to modify
the grill insert plate of Latour to be suspended by suspension elements as taught by
Gremillion for the desirable purpose of securely supporting the plate in suspended
relation to a cooking grid. More particularly, page 14 of the answer indicates that the
examiner is of the view that
a person of ordinary skill in the art would reasonably consider that the
plate (22a) of Latour et al., which receives and directs grease drippings in
the same manner as the screen (12) of Gremillion, would be suspended
by suspension elements, such as those taught by Gremillion, for the
recognized purpose of securing the plate (22a) within a grill.
We see no basis in the applied prior art references for modifying the grill
insert plate (22a) of Latour (which as seen in Figure 6 of that patent is specifically
designed to be mounted on the top of grill cooking grid (16)) in the particular manner
urged by the examiner so as to be suspended below the cooking grid by hook-type clips
like those seen at (34) in Gremillion. Thus, we find that the examiner has failed to make
out a prima facie case of obviousness. For that reason, we will not sustain the
examiner’s rejections of claims 6 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
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