Appeal No. 2000-0117 Page 9
Application No. 08/770,676
cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1057 (1968). Our reviewing court has
repeatedly cautioned against employing hindsight by using the
appellants’ disclosure as a blueprint to reconstruct the
claimed invention from the isolated teachings of the prior
art. See, e.g., Grain Processing Corp. v. American
Maize-Products Co., 840 F.2d 902, 907, 5 USPQ2d 1788, 1792
(Fed. Cir. 1988).
With this as background, we analyze the prior art applied
by the examiner in the rejection of the claims on appeal.
Looking first to the examiner’s rejection of claims 1 and
4 through 6 (appellants’ Group I) under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Matsushita in view of Igaue and Daio,
the examiner states that
Matsushita ‘424 clearly teaches all of the claimed
elements and steps except for forming the topsheet by
positioning between two sheets of material the
elastic members, i.e. a topsheet comprising a dual layered
topsheet with the elastic mem[b]ers in between. See
especially the Figures and Column 4, lines 22-28 of
Matsushita ‘424, i.e. Matsushita teaches attachment to the
backsheet (answer, page 4).
The examiner further notes that
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