Appeal 2006-1924
Application 09/954,506
As for Appellants’ separate arguments with respect to dependent
claim 15 (Br. 10-11), those arguments are directed at the Examiner’s
alternative position of considering strip 5 of Fernfors as a strip that
corresponds to the claimed refastenable fastener members of claim 15.
However, for the reasons set forth above, Fernfors teaches/suggests an
alternative embodiment wherein a releasable fastening member can be
employed that lies flat and does not include surplus material. Thus,
Appellants’ arguments concerning dependent claim 15 are unpersuasive of
reversible error.
On this record, we shall affirm the Examiner’s obviousness rejection
of claims 1, 2, 7-12, and 14-31.
The Examiner has separately rejected dependent claims 2 and 7-14
under § 103(a) as obvious over the combination of references applied in
rejecting claim 1, further in view of Widlund. Also, the Examiner has
separately rejected claims 3-6 under § 103(a) as obvious over the same
combination of references employed in rejection claim 1, further in view of
Roessler and Justmann with or without Widlund. As pointed out in footnote
1 (Br. 7), Appellants’ only argument against the separate rejections of these
dependent claims rests on their patentability argument for claim 1. It
follows that we will also sustain the separate obviousness rejection of claims
2 and 7-14, and the separate obviousness rejection of claims 3-6, as
presented in the final Office action mailed April 06, 2005.2
2 The Examiner (Answer 3) has treated the latter two rejections (while being
maintained by the Examiner), as well as an obviousness rejection pertaining
to other dependent claims, as not being before us for review. This is
apparently because Appellants failed to mention these rejections in the
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007