Appeal 2005-0801
Application 09/848,628
having a sufficient length to contact a bottom portion of the waste cart in a
normal waste containing position. On page 6 of the Final Office Action, the
Examiner states that Schafer’s support ribs and Matry's feet 32 are art-
recognized equivalents, and therefore substituting one for the other would
have been prima facie obvious.
On page 3 of Appellants’ Supplemental Reply Brief, Appellants argue
that there is no motivation to combine Matry with Schafer because the feet
32 of Matry are attached to the sides of a free-standing basket 28 and not to
the bottom, and Schafer only provides ribs 20 on the inside wall of the
container to form a support for false bottom (grate) 18. Appellants argue
that neither reference provides an objective reason to combine it with the
other, nor does the combination suggest legs that extend as bottom supports.
We find that Matry teaches that feet 32 “have an outward extent to
assure the positioning of the basket 28 in a generally central location”
(Matry, col. 2, ll. 6-9). The Examiner has not proffered a motivation or an
explanation as to why or how this feature of feet 32 would have been
incorporated into Schafer while meeting Appellants’ claim requirement of a
support member “positioned on the bottom surface of the false bottom so
that the support member has clearance from an inner surface of the waste
cart when the false bottom is pivoted away from the bottom portion of the
waste cart.” At the bottom of page 4 of the Final Office Action, the
Examiner states that “a person of ordinary skill in this art would have the
requisite skill to position the inserted support members disclosed in Matry
39
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