Appeal No. 97-4294 Page 11
Application No. 08/294,155
layer also includes both wet and dry resilient fibers which
are generally synthetic staple fibers such as polyethylene,
polypropylene and the like. Pieniak teaches that if the
fibers selected are not thermoplastic, a minor amount of
thermoplastic fibers can be added to provide a binder fiber so
that heat bonding can take place. From the teachings of
Pieniak, it is our view that one skilled in the art would be
unable to determine if the binder fibers are wettable or not.
Thus, Pieniak would not have suggested the claimed wettable
binder fibers. In addition, it is opinion, that while under
specific conditions articles taught by Pieniak would satisfy
the uptake limitations, this by itself is not sufficient to
establish obviousness since there is no motivation or
suggestion to make the claimed invention in light of the
teachings of Pieniak.
For the above reasons, the decision of the examiner to
reject claims 1 to 39 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.2
2The reference to Jackson was only applied by the
examiner to suggest the features of dependent claims 13, 17,
33 and 37. Thus, the examiner did not rely on Jackson for any
suggestion relative to the nonobvious limitations discussed
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