Appeal No. 1997-3816
Application No. 08/512,313
only water-receiving press fabric in the extended nip (lines
14 and 15). In our view, elimination of pick-up felt 50 would
greatly alter the structure and operation of the Laapotti ’762
system, to the extent that it would serve as a disincentive to
the artisan to make the change proposed by the examiner.
Thus, the teachings of Laapotti ’726 and Mirsberger,
combined on the bases advanced by the examiner, fail to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the
subject matter recited in independent claim 1. This also
applies to independent apparatus claim 42, which sets forth
the invention in slightly different terms but contains the
same limitations, and to independent method claim 14, in which
the steps establish these same limitations.
We therefore will not sustain the rejection of claims 1-
3, 5, 6, 8, 14-18, 41 and 42.
The examiner’s other four rejections of the various
dependent claims all rely upon Laapotti ’762 and Mirsberger
combined in the same manner. The additional references cited
in these rejections fail to alleviate the shortcomings we have
discussed above, and thus we also will not sustain the
examiner’s rejections of claims 9-13, 19, 20 and 41.
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