Appeal 2007-2743
Application 10/766,754
Claim 6
Claim 6 is a method claim that does not require performing the steps
in the recited order. Claim 6 requires “partially tearing the material along
the rows of perforations to facilitate tearing a desired number of the air-filled
cushions from the spring.” The claim encompasses partially tearing the
material along the rows of perforations and then forming the air-filled
cushions, provided that the partial tearing facilitates tearing of the
subsequently formed air-filled cushions.
Bolton’s disclosure that partially tearing lines of perforation between
bags eases the separation of the bags (col. 3, ll. 57-61) would have led one of
ordinary skill in the art, through no more than ordinary creativity, to use
Bolton’s technique to partially tear the lines of perforation in Fuss’s plastic
film, before the air-filled cushions are formed, to facilitate tearing of the
subsequently formed air-filled cushions. See KSR Int’l. Co. v. Teleflex Inc.,
127 S.Ct. 1727, 1741, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (2007) (In making an
obviousness determination one “can take account of the inferences and
creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.”).
The Appellant does not provide a substantive argument as to the
separate patentability of claim 6 but, rather, merely argues that the recited
“combination is neither found in nor suggested by the references” (Br. 6).
For the above reasons we affirm the rejection of claim 6.
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