Appeal 2007-0020
Application 10/680,510
Rejection over Collette in view of Akiyama
Akiyama discloses a molded plastic container having an upper mouth-
forming portion, lower base-forming portion and substantially cylindrical sidewall
portion (fig. 1) as required by the Appellants’ claims. The container has a neck
flange (holder ring 6) that may “be regularly hexagonal or octagonal like the holder
ring 6a shown in FIG. 33” (col. 15, ll. 9-12).
Claims 28-35, 38-42, 74-76, 79 and 80
The Appellants’ Brief does not include a discussion of the rejection over
Collette in view of Akiyama. In the Reply Brief the Appellants’ discuss together
the rejections over Collette in view of secondary references Akiyama, Du Pree or
JP ‘432.
The Appellants argue that none of Collette or the secondary references
indicates that a problem with bottle rotation exists (Reply Br. 9). As indicated by
JP ‘093 (p. 3), problems of bottle rotation and deformation or crushing during
capping were known in the art.
The Appellants argue that there would be no motivation to modify the
circular flange of Collette to prevent disengagement from a railing system during
bottling (Reply Br. 9). References need not be combined for the purpose of
solving the problem addressed by the Appellants. See In re Kemps, 97 F.3d 1427,
1430, 40 USPQ2d 1309, 1311 (Fed. Cir. 1996); In re Beattie, 974 F.2d 1309, 1312,
24 USPQ2d 1040, 1042 (Fed. Cir. 1992); In re Dillon, 919 F.2d 688, 693, 16
USPQ2d 1897, 1901 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (en banc), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 904 (1991).
As pointed out by the Appellants, “[t]he only problem with a circular flange is that
such a circular flange cannot be easily secured at the edge to inhibit or prevent
rotation of the bottle during the capping process” (Reply Br. 8-9). The reason for
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