Appeal No. 98-0384
Application No. 08/579,639
flexible end covers (figure 28) and teaches
providing a hub (18) inserted into a core (11).
Weaver teaches providing a sealing disk (3) with a
hub-shaped section (5) and a flexible section (8) as
an end cap. Pomeroy teaches providing end caps
comprising a hub-shaped section (3) with a sealing
disk (2) on a photosensitive material package. It
would have been obvious to provide a wider cover and
fold over the edges and to provide a hub as taught
by Takahashi '601, and to provide a sealing disk as
taught by Weaver and/or Pomeroy in the end caps of
the package of Syracuse to provide secure edges and
to increase protection of the ends of the material
even when a portion of the material has been
dispensed.
In reference to the "curved overhanging edge
portions", when the cover of Syracuse are [sic, is]
rolled around the roll of photosensitive material
the edges are inherently curved. [Answer, pages 3
and 4.]
We will not support the examiner's position. It is well
settled that it is the teachings of the prior art taken as a
whole which must provide the motivation or suggestion to
combine the references. See Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley
Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1051, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1438 (Fed. Cir.
1988) and Interconnect Planning Corp. v. Feil, 774 F.2d 1132,
1143, 227 USPQ 543, 550-51 (Fed. Cir. 1985). Here, absent the
appellant's own disclosure, we can think of no reason why one
of ordinary skill in this art would have been motivated to
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