Appeal No. 2006-1255
Application No. 10/655,076
OPINION
We affirm the rejection of claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, and reverse the other rejections. Regarding
the rejections over prior art we need to address only the
independent claims, i.e., claims 1, 14 and 17. Each of these 2
claims requires a multi-compartment containment for collecting
contaminated fluid.
Rejection of claim 16 under
35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph
The examiner argues that the appellant’s original disclosure
does not provide adequate written descriptive support for
“including a drain in an outer wall of each said compartment” in
claim 16 (answer, page 4). The appellant’s original
specification states that “[a] drain 54 is provided with each
compartment, preferably in the lower edge of an exterior wall”
(page 9, lines 1-2). Therefore, we reverse the rejection of
claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, written
description requirement.
2The examiner does not rely upon Shaw for any disclosure
that remedies the deficiency in Van Romer ‘588, Kellogg ‘188 and
Kellogg ‘924 with respect to claim 1 from which claim 10 depends
(answer, page 8).
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