Appeal No. 97-4049
Application 08/456,802
According to the examiner,
[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in view of Holley
and The Electronic Circuit Part Application Manual to apply electrostatic
dissipating packaging tape to any and all suitable surfaces and edges of the
container of Ohlbach to connect two adjoining ends with the antistatic
members to prevent static electricity damage” [answer, page 4].
As pointed out by the appellants, however, these references provide no indication
that the carton disclosed by Ohlbach is in any way deficient in performing its intended
function of protecting electronic devices housed therein from static electricity damage.
Thus, it is not apparent how or why one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it
obvious to supply the Ohlbach carton with an electrically conductive tape of the sort
required by independent claims 1 and 20. The examiner’s sweeping conclusion to the
contrary, i.e., that it would have been obvious to apply electrostatic dissipating packaging
tape to any and all suitable surfaces and edges of the Ohlbach container, betrays the
impermissible hindsight impetus of the proposed Ohlbach-Holley-Manual combination.
Bradford, also lacking in any relevant teaching involving electrically conductive tapes, fails
to cure this flaw in the basic prior art combination. This being the case, we shall not
sustain the examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of independent claims 1 and 20, or of
claims 6 and 10 through 16 which depend from claim 1.
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