Appeal No. 2005-2178
Application 09/969,882
reservoir (see above note 6 and p. 12). The fact that Whisenant does not use the gradient concept
for nutrient control does not preclude one of ordinary skill in the art from combining the
teachings of this reference with the other references applied by the examiner. See, e.g., Keller,
642 F.2d at 425, 208 USPQ at 881. We consider below appellant’s argument with respect to
claim 17, that Geraldson placed placement fertilizer mixture 17 in a band at the side of plant
openings.
The second issue in this appeal is whether one of ordinary skill in this art would have
modified the method of Geraldson by positioning inverted cup-shaped structures beneath the
holes in the plastic sheet in locations for the seedlings in order to contain the roots of the
seedlings in view of the disclosure of the insertion of such structure in such location by
Whisenant in the reasonable expectation of containing the roots of the plants.
Appellant submits that Geraldson teaches away from the claimed subject matter because
the plant openings 6,6' are situated away from fertilizer mixture 17 while the appealed claims
require root confinement means and fertilizer coextensive with the upper surface of the growing
medium (brief, pages 10-11). Appellant further submits that Geraldson has no disclosure of
initially embedding two sets of root confining means and providing openings over the first set
but not the second set (id., page 11). Appellant still further submits that Whisenant discloses a
device for a single plant which uses cup-shaped partition 32 to define plant growing area 43,
does not use the gradient concept for fertilizers in the growing medium, and “does not teach
protection of a volume of the unused growing medium during a growing season so that the
growing medium is reserved to be suitable for a second planting” (id., pages 8-9 and 14-15).
The examiner responds that Whisenant “teaches that it [is]. . . well-known to provide root
confining means in the growing medium of plants that are planted in container’ and that one of
ordinary skill in the art would thus have modified the container reservoir of Geraldson “with a
sufficient number of root confining means for each seedling to be planted” (answer, page 5).
The examiner further contends that Geraldson teaches providing holes in the cover for seedlings
and one of ordinary skill in the art would have logically provided holes in the cover when
seedlings are to be planted at that location (id.).
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