Appeal No. 96-0501
Application 08/101,499
materials of the enclosures and fill are not biodegradable, and
(ii) the enclosures are compressed after being placed in the
container, rather than before. As for (i), we consider the use
of biodegradable materials to have been obvious, for the reasons
discussed above. As for (ii), it would seem to have been an
obvious matter of choice whether the enclosures were compressed
before or after being placed in the container, and in any event,
such pre-compression (pre-evacuation) would have been obvious in
view of Bauman’s disclosure of placing compressed packing bags
into a container around an article 16 (col. 3, lines 5 to 21).
Accordingly, rejection (1) will be sustained.
Rejection (2)
Claim 25 reads:
25. A cushion as in claim 8, wherein the particles of
fill material have an interlocking shape which reduces migration
of the particles.
The examiner finds claim 25 to be unpatentable over the
combination of references applied in rejection (1), in view of
Holden or Atkins.
Holden discloses loose fill packing material of resilient
thermoplastic foam particles which are made in an interlocking
configuration. The patent teaches that the purpose of the
interlocking shape is “in order to prevent settling of the
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