Ex Parte Omar

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Apr 6, 2007

11095887 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 6, 2007)

The opinion in support of the decision being entered today was not written
for publication and is not binding precedent of the Board.

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
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Ex parte MELANEE OMAR
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Appeal 2007-0816
Application 11/095,887
Technology Center 3600
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Decided: April 6, 2007
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Before TONI R. SCHEINER, ERIC GRIMES, and RICHARD M.
LEBOVITZ, Administrative Patent Judges.

GRIMES, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involving claims to a car seat
for a child or infant. The Examiner has rejected the claims as anticipated
and obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse.
BACKGROUND
“Infant/child car seats are commonly used to conveniently and safely
seat and transport infants and small children. . . . One problem with
conventional car seats is that in order to release a child from the car seat an
Appeal 2007-0816
Application 11/095,887

individual must manually press the release button of the safety belt”
(Specification 1).
Manually operating the safety belt release button can be difficult
because “a parent or babysitter may have their arms full or will have one or
more children in the car requiring them to crawl across the seat. Further
difficulties arise when one child must be handled and a second child is to be
released from the car seat” (id.).
The Specification discloses “[a]n infant/child car seat having a shell
with a seat belt releasably secured to the shell by a release button, and a
transponder that remotely activates the release button to release the seat belt
from the shell” (id. at 2).
DISCUSSION
1. CLAIMS
Claims 1-3 are on appeal and read as follows:
1. An infant/child car seat comprising:
a seat shell having a seating surface and a seat belt releasably
secured to the shell by a release button on the seating
surface; and
a transponder that remotely activates the release button to
release the seat belt from the shell.

2. The device of claim 1 wherein the transponder has a
microprocessor.

3. The device of claim 1 wherein a transreceiver is associated
with the release button.

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Application 11/095,887

2. ANTICIPATION
Claims 1 and 3 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated
by Woody1 (Answer 3).
The Examiner cites Woody as describing
a car seat having a seat shell 5,7 (Fig. 2) with a seating surface
and a seat belt 45 (see Fig. 6) releasably secured to the shell by
a release button 48 on the seating surface, a transponder (see
column 2, lines 1-8) that remotely activates the release button to
release the seat belt from the shell, and a transreceiver 21 (Fig.
3) associated with the release button.
(Final Rejection 2.)
Appellant argues that Woody does not teach the “seat belt” required in
claim 1 (Br. 6;2 Reply Br. 43). “Instead Woody teaches a wrist
restraint” (Br. 6).
The Examiner urges that by giving the terms “seat” and “belt” their
broadest reasonable interpretations, it is reasonable to interpret the term
“seat belt as a strip of flexible material on a chair, stool, or bench to be sat
on. Therefore, Woody teaches a seat belt, as recited in claim [1], because
the restraints 40,45 are strips of flexible material located on the chair sat on
by the user” (Answer 6).
“Although the PTO must give claims their broadest reasonable
interpretation, this interpretation must be consistent with the one that those
skilled in the art would reach.” In re Cortright, 165 F.3d 1353, 1358,

1 Woody, US 4,813,745, Mar. 21, 1989.
2 Supplemental Appeal Brief received June 15, 2006.
3 Reply Brief received September 8, 2006.
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Appeal 2007-0816
Application 11/095,887

49 USPQ2d 1464, 1467 (Fed. Cir. 1999). We agree with Appellant that, by
interpreting “seat belt” to encompass the hand and wrist restraints in
Woody’s device, the Examiner has given the term “seat belt” an
unreasonably broad interpretation.
Woody describes a seat-shaped prisoner restraining device 1, which
can be placed in a car (Woody, Figure 1). To each side of the seat portion of
the device “an upstanding column is provided with each such column having
a top surface designed to support the palms of the hands of the prisoner
while each forearm of the prisoner engages a rear surface of a respective
column” (id. at col. 1, ll. 57-61; see also Figure 3).
Wrist restraints 40 and hand restraints 45, the elements cited by the
Examiner as being seat belts, are mounted to the columns, and are used to
restrain a prisoner seated within the device (id. at col. 3, ll. 24-41 and 52-
58). The restraints bind the prisoner’s hands to the tops of the columns, and
wrists to the backs of the columns (id., Figures 4-6). The restraints can be
remotely activated using a control box 21 connected by wires 27 to the
restraints (id. at col. 2, line 67 through col. 3, line 8).
We do not see, and the Examiner does not point to, where Woody
discloses that the restraints are made of flexible material. Nor does the
Examiner explain why the restraints are inherently made of flexible material.
Because Woody does not disclose the wrist and hand restraints as
being of flexible material, the restraints do not meet the Examiner’s own
definition of “seat belt” as being “a strip of flexible material on a chair,
stool, or bench to be sat on” (Answer 6 (emphasis added)). That is, because
they are not disclosed as being of flexible material, one skilled in the art
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Appeal 2007-0816
Application 11/095,887

would not have considered Woody’s hand and wrist restraints to be belts,
much less seat belts.
Moreover, the hand and wrist restraints are on columns 10, which are
located above and away from the actual seating portion 5 of the device
(Woody, Figure 3). Because the restraints are above and away from the
seating portion of the device, we agree with Appellant that one of ordinary
skill would not consider them to be “seat belts.”
“To anticipate a claim, a prior art reference must disclose every
limitation of the claimed invention, either explicitly or inherently.” In re
Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473, 1477, 44 USPQ2d 1429, 1431 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
We agree with Appellant that Woody does not describe an infant/child
car seat having a seat belt releasably secured to the seat shell. Because
Woody does not disclose a device meeting every limitation in claims 1
and 3, we reverse the anticipation rejection of those claims.
3. OBVIOUSNESS
Claim 2 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious
over Woody and McQuade4 (Answer 3).
We reverse this rejection as well.
Claim 2 depends from claim 1, and adds the limitation that the
transponder which remotely activates the seat belt release button has a
microprocessor.
As discussed supra, we agree with Appellant that Woody’s remotely
activated hand and wrist restraints are not encompassed by the term “seat

4 McQuade, US 6,362,734 B1, Mar. 26, 2002.
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Appeal 2007-0816
Application 11/095,887

belt” in claim 1. The Examiner does not point to, and we do not see,
anything in McQuade that remedies this deficiency.
“[O]bviousness requires a suggestion of all limitations in a claim.”
CFMT, Inc. v. Yieldup Intern. Corp., 349 F.3d 1333, 1342, 68 USPQ2d
1940, 1947 (Fed. Cir. 2003). Because the combination of references
asserted by the Examiner fails to teach or suggest all of the claim limitations,
we reverse the obviousness rejection of claim 2.
SUMMARY
We reverse the anticipation rejection of claims 1 and 3, and the
obviousness rejection of claim 2.

REVERSED

lbg

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