NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

IN RE JASON ONTJES AND JOEL ALDERSON

______________________ 

2014-1157

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in Serial No. 

12/757,643.

______________________ 

Decided: September 25, 2014 

______________________ 

JOHN M. COLLINS, Hovey Williams LLP, of Overland 

Park, Kansas, for appellants.

NATHAN K. KELLEY, Solicitor, Office of the Solicitor, 

United States Patent and Trademark Office, of Alexandria, Virginia, for appellee. With him on the brief were 

MONICA B. LATEEF and FARHEENA Y. RASHEED, Associate 

Solicitors. 

______________________ 

Before DYK, TARANTO, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

On April 9, 2010, Jason Ontjes and Joel Alderson filed

an application for a utility patent entitled “Decorative 

Propane Tank Assembly.” U.S. Patent Application No. 
2 IN RE ONTJES

12/757,643. The application describes and claims a simple invention: a cover assembly, for a propane tank with 

certain structural features, designed to resemble a football helmet or other sports-related object. The application 

discusses the use of the invention in tailgating cookouts in 

parking lots at sports stadiums.

The patent examiner rejected all claims that are at issue here as obvious over the prior art. The Patent Trial 

and Appeal Board affirmed the examiner’s rejections for 

obviousness, relying on four prior-art references: (1) U.S. 

Patent No. 4,473,171 (Nunlist); (2) U.S. Patent No. 

4,765,458 (Flanigen); (3) U.S. Patent Application No. US 

2009/0057325 A1 (Tullio); and (4) U.S. Patent No. US 

D577,791 S (Kalb). Ex Parte Jason Ontjes and Joel 

Alderson, No. 2011-010529, 2013 WL 4692713 (PTAB 

Aug. 29, 2013) (Board Decision). 

Ontjes and Alderson appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 141. 

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A).

BACKGROUND

Claim 1 is representative. It reads:

A sports-related cover assembly for a propane 

tank, said tank including an upper wall and a 

valve extending upwardly from the upper wall, 

said cover assembly comprising a decorative body 

having wall structure configured to be placed 

about a propane tank and presenting an upper 

and a lower margin, said wall structure including 

a substantially rigid outer wall shaped and configured to present a three-dimensional likeness of 

a sports-related item, said valve extending above 

said cover assembly upper margin, said decorative 

body formed of metal, permanently secured to said 

tank, presenting a concavo-convex wall segment, 

and having a portion thereof spaced at least onehalf inch from the tank.
IN RE: ONTJES 3

J.A. 448. Ontjes and Alderson have not shown how the 

required analysis produces a different result for any other 

claim—either independent claim 15 (a “tank assembly”) or 

the dependent claims. 

Figure 6 depicts one embodiment:

Each of the four prior-art references relied on by the 

Board describes either a container or a sports-themed 

object related to containers. Specifically, Nunlist describes a jacketed pressurized tank capable of holding 

liquid chemicals, see J.A. 510 (left-hand figure below), and

Flanigen describes an asbestos-free gas-storage vessel, see

J.A. 502 (right-hand figure below). 
4 IN RE ONTJES

Tullio describes a beer koozie decorated to resemble a 

miniature football helmet, see J.A. 518 (left-hand figure 

below), and Kalb describes a tank cover with the ornamental design of a football, see J.A. 508 (right-hand figure 

below). 
IN RE: ONTJES 5

DISCUSSION

A claimed invention is unpatentable if, at the time of 

invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary 

skill in the relevant art. 35 U.S.C. § 103. Obviousness 

presents a question of law based on underlying findings of 

fact about, e.g., the scope and content of the prior art and 

the differences between the prior art and the claims at 

issue. Graham v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City, 383 U.S. 

1, 17 (1966). We review the Board’s legal conclusion of 

obviousness de novo and its underlying findings of fact for 

substantial evidence. In re Gartside, 203 F.3d 1305, 1316 

(Fed. Cir. 2000). Substantial evidence is “such relevant 

evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate 

to support a conclusion.” Id. at 1312 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

A 

The Board did not err in considering Nunlist, Flanigen, Tullio, and Kalb in the obviousness analysis. It is 

sufficient for consideration of a reference that it is “reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which 

the inventor is involved.” In re Klein, 647 F.3d 1343, 1348 

(Fed. Cir. 2011) (citation and internal quotation marks 

omitted). The standard is met if the reference “is one 

which, because of the matter with which it deals, logically 

would have commended itself to an inventor’s attention in 

considering his problem.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). We review the Board’s analogousart determination for substantial evidence. Id. at 1347

(citation omitted). 

According to Ontjes and Alderson’s patent application, 

their invention is meant to solve the problem of “unattractive and innocuous propane tanks” by “decorat[ing them] 

in a manner consistent with a tailgate party scheme, . . . 

particularly [by] giv[ing] the appearance or likeness of a 

sports-related item.” J.A. 16. Nunlist, Flanigen, Tullio, 

and Kalb are all reasonably pertinent to that particular 
6 IN RE ONTJES

problem—Nunlist and Flanigen because they teach how 

to design a vessel for containing fluids such as propane, 

Tullio and Kalb because they teach how to make containers more pleasing to the eye through sports-themed 

decoration. The Board could find that those references 

would commend themselves to the attention of an inventor set on encasing a propane tank in a structure shaped 

like a football helmet. 

B 

The Board committed no error in reaching its obviousness conclusion in light of the prior art. As an initial 

matter, if one puts aside the purely ornamental features 

here, Nunlist alone discloses nearly all of Ontjes and 

Alderson’s claimed elements. For example, Ontjes and 

Alderson’s propane tank consists of an “upper wall[,] . . . a 

valve extending upwardly from the upper wall[, and] . . . a 

substantially rigid outer wall.” J.A. 22. The Board could 

readily find that Nunlist teaches “a valve extending 

upwardly from [an] upper wall” because it discloses a 

valve that extends from the top of a steel wall. J.A. 513 

(Nunlist, col. 2, lines 44–58); see also Board Decision at 

*2. Moreover, as the Board found, Nunlist’s “outer jacket 

wall” teaches Ontjes and Alderson’s claimed outer wall. 

Board Decision at *2. 

Ontjes and Alderson point out that none of the four 

prior-art references relied on by the Board specifically 

describe propane tanks. Appellants’ Br. at 17. But “[a] 

person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 

550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007). Given the structural similarities between a propane tank and the tanks taught by 

Nunlist and Flanigen, designing a propane tank based on 

the references at issue here would have been obvious. 

The Board found that certain features of the claimed 

invention were “‘purely ornamental’ ”—“only providing 

ornamentation, and no mechanical function.” Board 
IN RE: ONTJES 7

Decision at *4. It concluded that those features “cannot 

be relied upon for patentability” in a utility patent and

that, even if the features are considered, the claims still 

must be invalidated for obviousness. Id. at *4–5. Without 

addressing the first conclusion, we affirm because we 

agree with the second conclusion. 

Even if purely ornamental features should be given 

patentable weight, Tullio and Kalb disclose all the ornamental features—“sports-related,” “decorative body,” 

“configured to present a three-dimensional likeness of a 

sports-related item” (J.A. 448)—that Ontjes and Alderson 

claim. Tullio, for example, describes a decorative, threedimensional can-holder that looks like a football helmet. 

Kalb describes a football-shaped tank cover. Ontjes and 

Alderson’s invention is more of the same: a sports-themed 

cover added to a propane tank. “Such a combination of 

familiar elements according to known methods is likely to 

be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable 

results.” KSR, 550 U.S. at 401.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the Board is 

affirmed.

No costs.

AFFIRMED