Appeal No. 2006-0811
Application No. 10/323,510
Hankins discloses an instructional and recreational
apparatus having a plurality of writing surfaces, one of which is
a chalk board (33) having an eraser supporter (34) (col. 3,
lines 1-4).
The examiner argues that it would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art to make Adkison’s board erasable for
repeated use to save money (answer, page 5). Adkison does not
write on his board but, rather, places blocks or cards on the
board (col. 1, line 35 - col. 2, line 20). Hence, the benefit
argued by the examiner is not relevant to Adkison’s board. The
examiner, therefore, has not established a prima facie case of
obviousness of the game claimed in the appellant’s claims 5
and 12.
As for claims 6 and 13, the appellant argues that Hankins’
storage compartment (21) is not a game piece retainer (brief,
pages 11-12 and 14-15). That storage compartment (col. 2, lines
16-17; figure 1) corresponds to the appellant's game piece
retainer because it has an exterior surface (i.e., its walls) and
a game piece holder (i.e., the floor of the opening between the
walls) that is adjacent to the exterior surface and is capable of
holding a game piece thereon at a position such that the game
piece is visible from above to game players. As argued by the
6
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