Appeal No. 97-1640
Application 08/326,059
that in view of this teaching it would have been obvious to provide the top 24 of the Sowle
bag 20 with such an opening (final rejection (Paper No. 18)), pages 2 to 3. Appellants
argue that the combination of Sowle and Gottily would not result in the claimed structure
because “The cited primary references [sic] are both closed at one end (i.e.[,] they are
envelopes not sleeves)” (brief, page 4, original emphasis). However, this argument would
appear to be moot because appellants and the examiner have evidently both overlooked
the fact that at col. 3, lines 4 to 6, Sowle specifically discloses that, instead of bag 20, the
heat-shrinkable cover 10 “may be in the form of a sleeve.” Thus it was unnecessary for the
examiner to rely on Gottily for the teaching of providing an opening.
Appellants, noting that Sowle’s lines of perforations 40, 42 are located centrally,
halfway between the side edges of cover 10, contend that such perforations are not
“proximate.....to one of said side edges.” as called for by claims 11 and 15, but instead are
“as far from proximate to the side edges as is physically possible” (brief, page 5). The
examiner responds that (answer, page 5):
the lines of weakness in Sowle are near one of the side
edges to the same degree as appellant [sic] sets forth the
structure of “proximate” in the claims.
It is not clear what the examiner means by this statement. It is well settled that, during
patent examination, claims will be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow.
In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Prater, 415
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