Appeal No. 1998-2217
Application No. 08/644,555
The examiner recognizes that the process disclosed in
Bluhm does not use appellants’ claimed “modified wet-resilient
fibers,” but nonetheless concludes (Answer, p. 3):
The use of the modified wet resilient fibers as
claimed would have been obvious in Bluhm et al since
these fibers are well known in the art to improve
the bulk and/softness of the absorbent tissue
product as evidenced by admitted state of the prior
art on pages 3, 7 and 8 of the instant
specification.
To the extent that appellants recognize that "modified
wet-resilient fibers" are known in the art, absent appellants’
disclosure of their own invention, there would have been no
reason to expect that using "modified wet-resilient fibers" in
a "wet-pressing" method such as disclosed in Bluhm would
result in the claimed bulk. See In re Dow Chem., 837 F.2d
469, 473, 5 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (under 35
U.S.C. § 103, both the suggestion and the expectation of
success must be founded in the prior art). Indeed, the
discussion at pages 7 and 8 of the specification relates to
the use of “modified wet-resilient fibers” in appellants’
claimed process. It is in this context that appellants
disclose that these fibers improve the bulk of webs partially
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