Appeal No. 2003-1394
Application 09/620,202
forming from sheet[s] or billets” (column 4 lines 60 and 61).
Both include respective thermoplastic layers 24 which can be
heated and pressed into sealing contact by RF electrodes 31. The
lid further includes an overhang 26 “which serves as a convenient
place to grip and apply force to peel the lid off” (column 5,
lines 18 and 19). The overhang can also function, after the lid
has been peeled off and inverted, to mechanically reseal the lid
to the container (see column 5, lines 46 through 58).
In proposing to combine Bakker and Stewart to reject
independent claim 20, the examiner likens Stewart’s overhang 26
to a bead and concludes in light thereof that “[i]t would have
been obvious to one skilled in the art to provide the Baker [sic,
Bakker] container with . . . a bead to . . . more easily open the
package” (answer, page 3).
Even if this combination were made, however, it still would
not respond to the recitation in claim 20 that the bead be
produced by shrinking the film such that it shrinks back to the
flange and forms the bead thereon. Stewart contains no
indication that the overhang/bead 26 is formed in this manner.
To the contrary, Stewart fairly suggests that the overhang 26 is
present on the thermoformed, vacuum formed or solid phase formed
lid 21 prior to the time at which the lid is heat sealed to the
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