Appeal No. 2005-2412
Application No. 10/018,818
the Beall disposition wherein all of the snack pieces are
horizontally disposed on the same level because “any and every
snack piece is considered the lowest” (answer, page 5). This is
not a reasonable interpretation of claim 1. The claim phrase
“lowest snack piece” must be reasonably interpreted consistent
with the phrase language and the subject specification as
referring to a snack piece which is at the lowest disposition
relative to the other snack pieces in the here claimed plurality
of snack pieces.
Thus, we agree with the appellants that claim 1, when
properly interpreted consistent with their specification,
requires a shaped container bottom in combination with a
plurality of curved snack pieces which are vertically stacked one
on another. Correspondingly, we agree with the appellants that
this claim is not anticipated by the combination of a container
bottom having a plurality of snack pieces horizontally disposed
thereon as in Beall ‘510 or Beall ‘485. For this reason alone,
we cannot sustain the examiner’s Section 102 rejection of
independent claim 1 and of claims 3-5 and 10 which ultimately
depend therefrom as being anticipated by the Beall references.
Analogously, we also cannot sustain the examiner’s Section
103 rejection of claims 6-9, which ultimately depend from claim
5
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