Appeal No. 2002-0741
Application No. 08/935,348
In light of the foregoing, the rejection of claims 13-19
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) will not be sustained.
Rejection (c): the rejection of claim 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Zacharias PCT ‘238 in view of Lichstein and
Vukos.
Independent claim 20 is directed to a sanitary napkin having
a body-side adhesive. In addition to the rheology property for
the adhesive found in paragraph (c), claim 20 sets forth that (1)
the body-facing surface of the cover has “a longitudinal
dimension less than 9 inches and a transverse dimension less than
3.5 inches,” and (2) the adhesive has “an adhesive weight less
than 1500 mg per square inch.” We have searched the disclosure
of appellants’ application 08/659,858 in vain for any descriptive
support for the above noted claim elements (1) and (2).4 Finding
none, we conclude that claim 20 is not entitled to an earlier
4Concerning claim element (2), we find that the disclosure
of the ‘858 application which corresponds to column 7, lines 15-
18 of U.S. Patent 6,213,993 B1 that “[t]otal adhesive add on to
the spunbond was approximately 263 grams per square meter” (i.e.,
approximately 170 mg per square inch) does not provide
descriptive support for the claim limitation that the adhesive
has an adhesive weight in the range “less than 1500 mg per square
inch.”
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