Appeal No. 2006-3175
Application No. 10/419,601
articles” (answer, p. 4). Given the disparate nature and size of the “bottle gas”
containers of Lyon and the baby bottles of Ricks and the vastly different functions
of the elastic bands of Lyon (to indicate ownership, type of gas and empty or full
status) and the labels of Ricks (to provide a means of identifying the owner of a
baby bottle which cannot be easily tampered with by infants), it is not apparent
why one of ordinary skill in the art would have found any suggestion to utilize the
elastic bands of Lyon with baby bottles. From our perspective, the only suggestion
for putting the selected pieces from the references together in the manner proposed
by the examiner is found in the luxury of hindsight accorded one who first viewed
the appellants' disclosure. This, of course, is not a proper basis for a rejection. See
In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1784 (Fed. Cir. 1992). The
rejection cannot be sustained.
We turn finally to the rejection of claims 1-20 as being unpatentable over
Murphy in view of Lyon or Luedde. For the reasons that follow, we cannot sustain
this rejection.
Murphy discloses a drinking cup identification system for a set of a plurality
of drinking cups, particularly children’s drinking cups, such as baby bottles (¶
0028), in which each of the drinking cups is provided with a unique identifying
indicia (¶ 0009). The identification system should not only be capable of
identifying each of a plurality of drinking cups but should also be capable of
visually tracking each of the drinking cups. Such visual tracking should include
determining when each drinking cup was used and whether any of the plurality of
drinking cups is missing (¶ 0008). Suitable unique identifying indicia include, for
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013