Appeal No. 97-0751
Application 08/380,622
Independent claim 9 is further illustrative of the appealed
subject matter and a copy thereof may be found in the appendix to
the appellant’s brief.
The prior art relied on by the examiner is:
Carpenter 2,030,135 Feb. 11, 1936
Mack 4,621,442 Nov. 11, 1986
Claims 6-10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Carpenter in view of Mack. According to the
examiner:
Carpenter lacks the inner liner or one of the
liners cut to a length greater than that of the
attachment assembly and the excess length folded
upward. Mack discloses an adhesive unit with a liner
cut to a length longer than the attachment assembly and
the excess folded upward in a direction perpendicular
to the length of the assembly to form a tab allowing
for ease of removal of the liner after the garments are
in place on the user. . [sic] It would have been2
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify
the adhesive assembly of Carpenter by including a liner
which is longer than the length of the attachment
assembly in order to provide an additional gripping
means to facilitate donning the same between upper and
lower garments. [Answer, page 4; emphasis ours;
footnote added.]
We are at a loss to understand where Mack teaches the above-
emphasized structure as the examiner asserts. The only thing
2Notably absent from the examiner’s explanation of the
rejection is any identification of what element in Mack the
examiner considers to correspond to the folded liner.
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