Appeal No. 2006-1848
Application No. 10/352,360
As the inventor also noted, a recently enacted U.S. law requires such
haulers to have all four sides enclosed. Since these types of haulers
are typically loaded using a forklift, another problem confronting the
inventor was to make the interior of the trailer easy to access such that
it could be loaded using a forklift.
We next turn to an examination of the scope and content of the
prior art and the differences between the prior art and the claims.
Carter is directed to the exact same type of transport trailer as the
appellant’s invention, viz., a trailer for hauling stacked, crushed
vehicles. Carter recognizes the problems with using flatbed trailers
for this type of hauling. For example, Carter recognizes that flatbed
trailers have no sides so that parts from flattened vehicles might fall
off the trailer and leave dangerous debris on the highway. (Carter,
column 1, lines 37-40).
Carter solves these problems by adding a front wall (24), a rear
wall (26), and one side wall (28) to the trailer (10). The other side
(30) of the trailer is left open to allow for ease of loading the flattened
vehicles with the forklift. One skilled in the art at the time of the
invention confronted with the problems discussed above, would look
to Carter and see a partial solution to the disadvantages of a flatbed
trailer used to transport this type of bulky cargo. However, Carter did
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