Appeal No. 96-3723
Application 08/136,939
as unpatentable over Witman in view of Herr and Wang. We have
carefully considered the entire record, including the positions
of the appellants as set forth in their briefs and the positions
of the examiner as set forth in the answers, and we have decided
that we will not sustain these rejections.
I.
In the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, the examiner
contends that there is no support for the limitation "capable of
shrinking at least 0.1%" in claim 1. We disagree. As noted by
appellants on page 47 of their substitute brief, there is express
support for the limitation on page 6 of the specification, lines
4-7. The amendment filed with the application on October 18,
1993 (Amendment B), which changed "0.01%" to "0.1%", merely
corrected an obvious error in the decimal point placement and
does not constitute new matter for the reasons adequately set
forth by appellants on page 49 of their substitute brief.
The examiner contends that there is no support in the
specification for the language in claim 22 "the inner layer is
uncrosslinked". We agree with appellants, however, that there is
adequate support for the phrase on page 8, lines 16-20, where it
is disclosed that the "unfoamed inner layer is preferably a
thermoplastic, and most preferably a vinyl. However, it may be a
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