Appeal No. 96-0501
Application 08/101,499
compressed from about 90 to about 40 percent of its original
volume (col. 8, lines 16 to 39).
The Starcevich patent discloses that packaging materials
such as beads or discs which are made from petroleum-based
products as polystyrene, styrofoam, etc., present a disposal and
environmental problem in that they are not readily degradable
(col. 1, lines 15 to 25). The patent therefore suggests as an
alternative the use of a water soluble biodegradable packaging
and cushioning material consisting of expanded fill particles
made from grain, such as corn, wheat or rice. In view of the
Starcevich patent, we consider that it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the water soluble
biodegradable fill particles disclosed by Starcevich instead of
the petroleum-based fill materials disclosed by Wright at col. 4,
line 34, et seq. Contrary to appellant’s arguments, such
substitution would not constitute impermissible hindsight
reconstruction, but rather the application of a clear teaching in
the prior art in order to solve a problem arising from use of the
apparatus disclosed by Wright.
Moreover, we consider that it would have been obvious to
utilize a water-soluble biodegradable material as the material of
the “second packaging enclosures” disclosed by Wright. Wright
discloses that the second enclosures may be “[a]ny polymeric
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