Appeal No. 95-3879
Application 08/162,920
of Planeta’s collapsing frame to the left of the longitudinal center line of the frame have spiral ridges going
to the left while those each of the rollers to the right of the longitudinal center line have spiral ridges going
to the right.
Appellant appears to concede that the examiner has established a prima facie case of obviousness
and argues that a declaration by the inventor under 37 CFR § 1.132 rebuts the prima facie case. We have
considered the declaration, but we find it inadequate.
According to the declarant, the pair of “scrolled rollers” disclosed by Noble “does not work
satisfactorily because a collapsing tubular film has different speeds across its width and consequently such
large rollers cannot effect satisfactory collapse” and that as a result, “[s]uch an arrangement (with one roller)
is used only with plastic film in the form of a single flat web, and in fact has been so used for about fifty
years” (declaration: p. 2, ¶5). Neither the declarant nor the specification set forth what a “satisfactory
collapse” means. The specification speaks in terms of minimizing wrinkling (p. 2, lines 12-14) and this is
precisely what would be expected in view of the teachings of Noble. While the collapsing film may have
different speeds across the width of the film, the declarant has not provided any evidence that appellant’s
claimed collapsing frame would provide unexpected results over Noble’s pair of “scrolled rollers” to
collapse a thin filmed tube. Accordingly we conclude that the declaration does not show unexpected results
that would rebut the prima facie case established by the combined teachings of Planeta and Noble. For
the foregoing reasons, the decision of the examiner rejecting claims 1 and 2 over Planeta and Noble is
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Last modified: November 3, 2007