Appeal No. 2006-0930
Application No. 09/905,540
ensued. (Supplemental appeal brief filed on June 9, 2005 at 3;
FF4.)
In the examiner’s answer mailed August 31, 2005, the
examiner withdrew all but one ground of rejection. (Answer at
5 3-4; FF5.) The sole rejection on appeal is whether, under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a), claims 1, 3, 5, 6, and 17 through 20 are
unpatentable over the combination of Zimmerman and the
appellant’s admitted prior art in the form of Snack-A-Dip®
(Lightly Salted Tortilla Chips & Salsa).2
10 Before addressing the merits of the examiner’s rejection,
we review the appellant’s invention. Appealed claim 1, which is
representative of all the appealed claims, reads (supplemental
appeal brief, Appendix I; FF8):
1. A kit for containing both a plurality of
15 snack pieces and a dip-condiment, said kit comprising:
a canister;
a plurality of snack pieces contained within said
canister, wherein the snack pieces have an average
projected area ranging from about 1900 mm2 to about
20 10,000 mm2;
a tub attached to said canister; and
a dip condiment held within said tub;
wherein said kit has a space efficiency greater
2 The appellant has argued the appealed claims together as
a group. (Substitute appeal brief at 7-8; FF7.) We therefore
select claim 1 as representative of all the rejected claims and
confine our discussion of the examiner’s rejection to this
representative claim. 37 CFR § 41.37(1)(vii)(2005)(effective
September 13, 2004).
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