Appeal No. 2006-0813
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,235
knowledge of all the pertinent prior art in the field of the invention. Custom Accessories Inc.
v. Jeffrey-Allan Industries Inc., 807 F2d 955, 962, 1 USPQ2d 1196, 1201 (Fed. Cir. 1986));
The Standard Oil Company v. American Cyanamid Company, 774 F.2d 448, 454, 227
USPQ 293, 297 (Fed. Cir. 1985). The statutory obviousness standard does not require
express teaching of every difference. Only that the differences “are such that the invention
as a whole would have been obvious . . . .” 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). The relevant question is
whether the prior art would have suggested that the hypothetical person do what the
appellant has done. McLaughlin’s express teaching of the desirability of configuring
drawers to meet the user needs, the well known use of partitions between drawers and the
disclosure of removable partitions within drawers would have reasonably suggested to the
person having ordinary skill in the art the use of removable partitions between drawers to
allow customization or drawer sizes to meet user needs.
The rejection of Claims 17-34 is affirmed.
New Ground of Rejection
We enter the following new ground of rejection: Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over McLauglin combined with U.S. Patent 4,114,965 to Oye et
al2. The sole alleged difference between McLaughlin and the subject matter of Claim 17 is
the limitation requiring a removable partition between drawers allowing customization of the
drawer configuration such as by substituting a single large drawer for two or more smaller
drawers. Oye relates to medical dispensing cart having numerous medicine drawers or
bins 38. The drawers may be of various sizes. The drawers are arranged on removable
partitions (racks 56). The partitions are removable to permit the use of different sized
drawers. Oye states (col. 3, ll. 44-58):
To accommodate various size medication drawers or bins 38, the
compartment is separated into three smaller compartments by rails 54
2 In making this rejection we have not evaluated its applicability to any other
claims. We leave such consideration to the examiner in the event of further prosecution.
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