Appeal No. 95-0706
Application 07/820,461
It is well settled that the examiner may satisfy his burden of establishing a prima facie case
of obviousness under § 103 by showing some objective teachings or suggestions in the prior art
taken as a whole or that knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art would
have led that person to combine the relevant teachings of the references in the proposed manner
to arrive at the claimed invention as a whole, including each and every limitation of the claims,
without recourse to the teachings in appellant’s disclosure. See generally In re Fine, 837 F.2d
1071, 1074-76, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598-1600 (Fed. Cir. 1988); In re Dow Chem. Co., 837 F.2d
469, 473, 5 USPQ2d 1529, 1531-32 (Fed. Cir. 1988); In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1014-17,
154 USPQ 173, 176-78 (CCPA 1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1057 (1968). We cannot conclude
that the examiner has carried his burden in the case before us.
While we agree with the examiner that the manipulative steps of the claimed processes are
those of the well known blown film process and that linear low density polyethylene can be used
in this process as evinced by the discussion of the prior art in van der Molen3 (col. 1) as well as
the discussions of the prior art and the “cooling” modifications of the known process in Grady
(cols. 1-9, and Figs. 1 and 2), Audureau et al. (cols. 1 and 3-4, and Fig. 1) and Keim (cols. 1-5
and Figs. 1 and 2),4 we must also agree with appellants that none of the applied prior art discloses
3 van der Molen and other references relied on by the examiner with respect to the grounds of
rejection are listed at pages 2-3 of the answer. We refer to these references in our opinion by the
name associated therewith by the examiner.
4 Appellants’ argue (e.g., principal brief, pages 4-6 and 8; reply brief, pages 2-3) that Grady,
Audureau et al. and Keim fail to disclose continuous extrusion of linear low density polyethylene
resin through an annular die to form a “tube” which has a diameter substantially the same as the
annular die diameter and which is expanded to form a “bubble” or a “balloon” that exceeds the
annular die diameter and the tube diameter (e.g., claim 15), and the cooling of the outer surface of
the tube and expanding tube with a cooling gas (e.g., claims 17 and 18) which gas forms a
positive pressure zone (e.g., claim 20) while the pressure in the “bubble” or “balloon” is increased,
thus creating a positive pressure differential (e.g., claim 19). These arguments are clearly contrary
to a plain reading of these references and thus are without merit. We further note that there is no
limitation in the appealed claims which can be read to specify the length or diameter of the “tube”
subsequent to the point of extrusion and prior to expansion which would limit the claims to the
so-called “long stalk” process (principal brief, pages 6-7; appellants’ specification, pages 23-24;
see also Cerisano, of record, Papers No. 24 and 26, e.g., cols. 4-6, particularly col. 5, lines 41-42)
or to exclude a second cooling point in the blown film process (principal brief, page 8). Indeed,
Audureau et al. discloses that linear low density polyethylene can be used in a “long stalk” process
(e.g., col. 4, line 9, and Fig. 1).
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