Appeal No. 1998-3367
Application No. 08/545,717
Claim 1, the sole independent claim on appeal requires,
in part, that the waist belt “has a stiffness of between 25 g
and
90 g as measured by the modified version of test ASTM D
4032-82 CIRCULAR BEND PROCEDURE.”
The examiner’s rationale in rejecting the appealed claims
as being based on a disclosure that does not satisfy the
enablement requirement found in the first paragraph of 35
U.S.C. § 112 is found on page 4 of the answer and reads as
follows:
The disclosure states that the waist
belt has a specific bending stiffness
calculated on [a] modified version of
the test ASTM D 4032-82 CIRCULAR BEND
PROCEDURE and that the belt is made of
non-woven material. However, the
Specification does not disclose of what
the belt is made, i.e.[,] the make-up of
the belt being polypropylene, polyester,
or some other type of polymer. It does
not even disclose one procedure or
component that the belt is made of.
Appellant’s [sic, Appellants’] claims
relies [sic] on a considerably modified
version of an ASTM test. It would take
undue experimentation to find a material
which falls within the requirements of
Appellant’s [sic, Appellants’] claims.
[Emphasis in original.]
It thus appears that the examiner’s rejection is founded
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