Appeal No. 2005-0214
Application No. 09/742,653
II. The rejection of claims 31-33, 35-40, 42, 43, 46-52, 55, and
59 under 35 U.S.C. §103 as being unpatentable over Calhoun
‘790 in view of Rusincovitch
Again, we limit our consideration to claim 31.
We refer to pages 5-7 of the Office action of Paper No. 18
(mailed October 27, 2003) regarding the examiner’s position for
this rejection.
The issue in this rejection is whether the combination of
references fairly suggests to one of ordinary skill in the art
that it would have been obvious to have embedded the non-adhesive
forms into the top release surface of the release liner such that
the non-adhesive material forms are even or below the plane of
the top release surface of the release liner, wherein the the
non-adhesive forms comprise a polymeric ink.
Beginning on page 5 of the final Office action of Paper No.
18, the examiner finds that Calhoun ‘790 shows a release liner
having a top release surface and a bottom surface (in Figure 1),
wherein there is a non-adhesive material embedded into the top
release surface of the release liner, and refers to item 15 shown
in Figure 1 of Calhoun ‘790. The examiner states that Calhoun
‘790 teaches the use of glass microspheres, rather than polymeric
ink, for the non-adhesive material forms.
The examiner relies upon Rusincovitch for teaching the use
of polymeric ink, and refers to column 2, lines 15-24 and column
1, lines 65 through column 2, line 2 of Rusincovitch. Final
office action of Paper No. 18, page 6.
The examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to
have modified Calhoun ‘790 by using ink forms, rather than the
glass microspheres, for the purpose of providing a repositionable
adhesive, wherein the non-adhesive material forms are not
noticeable when viewing a substrate from the facestock surface as
taught by Rusincovitch. Final office action of Paper No. 18,
-6-
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