Ex Parte Raab

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 23, 2013

11587410 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 23, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte ALFRED RAAB
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Appeal 2011-007481
Application 11/587,410
Technology Center 3700
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Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, MEREDITH C. PETRAVICK, and
PHILIP J. HOFFMANN, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOFFMANN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2011-007481
Application 11/587,410

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of
claims 21-421. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
The rejected claims are directed to a domestic application, such as a
refrigerator, with a repositionable display screen (Spec. [0002]-[0003]).
Claim 21 is the sole independent claim. The claim is reproduced and
reformatted below.
21. A domestic appliance comprising
a housing,
a recess in the housing and
a display screen which can be swiveled relative
to the housing and is disposed in a recess in the housing
in a flush position,
wherein at least one axis of rotation on which the
display screen is suspended can be moved between
a position in which the axis of rotation
holds the display screen in the flush position
and
an extended position in which the axis of
rotation extends in front of the recess and the
display screen can rotate about the axis of
rotation.

1 Our decision will refer to Appellant’s Specification (“Spec.,” filed October
23, 2006), Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed September 10, 2010), and Reply
Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed March 3, 2011), as well as the Examiner’s Answer
(“Ans.,” mailed January 4, 2011).
Appeal 2011-007481
Application 11/587,410

3
THE REJECTION
The Examiner rejects the claims as follows:
Claims 21-42 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Kim (US
2004/0216471 A1, pub. Nov. 4, 2004) in view of Nevin (US 6,553,919 B1,
iss. Apr. 29, 2003).
ANALYSIS
With respect to independent claim 21, the claim includes the
limitation
at least one axis of rotation on which the
display screen is suspended can be moved between
a position in which the axis of rotation holds the
display screen in the flush position and an
extended position in which the axis of rotation
extends in front of the recess and the display
screen can rotate about the axis of rotation.
The Examiner states that Kim’s hinge 56 teaches the claimed axis of
rotation, although the Examiner concedes that hinge 56 is not movable to
“an extended position in which the axis of rotation extends in front of the
recess and the display screen can rotate about the axis of rotation” as
required by claim 21 (Ans. 4). The Examiner states, however, “Nevin
teaches the use of axis of rotation (36) [that] extends in front of a recess (22)
and the display screen (14) can rotate about the axis of rotation (36).” Id.
The Examiner then concludes “it would have been obvious . . . to modify the
display device of Kim . . . in view of Nevin such that axis of rotation could
be extended in front of the recess in order to adjust the display screen angle
at a suitable and comfortable viewing position” (Ans. 4-5). Nonetheless, for
Appeal 2011-007481
Application 11/587,410

4
the following reasons we agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not
established that the combination of Kim and Nevin discloses the above-
discussed limitation (App. Br. 8-11, Reply Br. 3-7).
In this case, the Examiner has not provided sufficient guidance as to
how the references are to be combined to render claim 21 obvious. For
example, we are unsure as to whether the Examiner intends that pin 36 of
Nevin is to be used in place of hinge 56 of Kim, which would not appear to
alter the movement of the display screen. Alternately, it is unclear as to
whether the Examiner intends that pin 36 is somehow to be used in addition
to hinge 56, which would seem to require additional structure from Nevin.
The Examiner has not identified any such structure from Nevin, nor
indicated how this structure is to be integrated into Kim. Thus, because we
find that the Examiner’s reasoning insufficient to show how a person with
ordinary skill in the art would end up with a combination that meets the
claim requirements, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 21.
The remaining claims depend from independent claim 21. We
therefore also do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 22-42.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 21-42 is REVERSED.

REVERSED
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