Appeal No. 97-1640
Application 08/326,059
article with such a sleeve shrunken thereover. The appealed claims are reproduced in the
appendix to appellants’ brief.
The references applied in the final rejection are:
Sowle 3,259,235 Jul. 5, 1966
Gottily et al. (Gottily) 3,260,358 Jul. 12, 1966
Fujio 3,679,048 Jul. 25, 1972
The claims on appeal stand finally rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the following combinations of references:
(1) Claims 11 and 15, Sowle in view of Gottily;
(2) Claims 12 to 14, Sowle in view of Gottily and Fujio.
2
We havefully considered the record in light of the arguments presented in
appellants’ brief and the examiner’s answer. Our decisions as to each of the two
rejections are set forth below under separate headings.
Rejection (1)
In making this rejection, the examiner relied on Gottily as teaching “that it is known
to provide an opening at the top of a heat-shrinkable packaging sleeve,” and concluded
2In reviewing the application, we note that there appears to be a discrepancy
between Fig. 8 and its description. On page 7, lines 21 to 24 of the specification, it is
stated that zones 50 are reinforced by folded strip 70 “having an upper layer 71 [and] a
lower layer 72 folded about score line 73,” but in Fig. 8 score line 73 is shown as being on
edge 14 of the walls 11, 12, and layers 71, 72 are separate pieces, rather than parts of a
single folded piece.
2
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