Court Opinion

ID: 9451253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:11:08.153929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:37.814822
License: Public Domain

RICH, Judge, with whom SMITH, Judge, joins
(concurring).
The record seems to be in some confusion as to what Olsen shows, appellant having referred to it as a “seat” and the board having compounded the error. There is no mention in Olsen of a “seat.” He discloses a “window sill board,” whatever that may be. I would assume it serves as a shelf on which to put things, as appellant’s “window bench” serves to support electric typewriters and other office equipment having electric cords which one desires to conceal to make a tidy office.
I would agree with the board that the Olsen patent is the principal reference and I would consider it the only reference needed to support an obviousness rejection. Appellant’s invention differs from Olsen in providing a box structure underneath the window sill board to contain wires and in having a box of such dimensions that the shelf overhangs its front wall. Such structure, it seems to me, would be obvious to any carpenter or cabinetmaker and well within the ordinary skill of such a person in view of the common American school desks of various kinds at which we all sat as children, which had box-like tops in which books could be stored and no end of other things concealed. It seems to me the invention claimed is no more than an obvious solution to a simple stowage problem made to look more involved than it is by the complexity of American claim practice. Described as a shelf with a box under it, secured to a wall under a window on common brackets, which is all it is, unpatentability becomes much clearer.