Appeal No. 96-2630
Application No. 08/259,824
Claims 23 through 30 stand rejected:
a) under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Busker
in view of Burgess or Benz; and
b) under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by or, in
the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Klowak, Sanford, Weldon, Smith, Hostetler or Ogden.4
Reference is made to the appellants’ brief (Paper No. 12)
and to the examiner’s answer (Paper No. 13) for the respective
positions of the appellants and the examiner as to the propriety
of these rejections.
With regard to the first rejection, Busker discloses a
tissue sheet made from a through-drying process. In such a
process, a wet tissue web is at least partially dried by passing
heated air through it, rather than by mechanically pressing it.
Busker’s through-dried tissue web initially has “a relatively
dense, firm texture, and although flexible feels hard and
relatively smooth when touched” (column 2, lines 56 through 58).
In order to impart softness and bulk to the web, it is advanced
“through the nip of spaced grooved rotary texturing rolls having
complementary partially interdigitated texturing ribs acting on
4These “alternative” rejections are in effect two separate
rejections, one under § 102(b) and one under § 103.
3
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