Appeal No. 96-1214
Application No. 08/065,182
references and did not cite these references in their specification even though on page 3
of their specification they refer to the use of large-diameter bars and Meinander,
Rantanen (‘396 and ‘497) and the instant application are all assigned to Valmet Paper
Machinery, Inc. During prosecution of the application, the examiner initialed the PTO
1449 on October 14, 1993 indicating that he considered the above prior art. Accordingly,
had the record in this appeal been properly developed by appellants and the examiner it
would have been recognized that it is conventional in this art to employ large diameter
revolving tubular coating bars in methods and devices for coating webs. (our emphasis)
Specifically, note that Meinander teaches a revolving bar having a diameter preferably
from 20 to 200 mm that can be tubular and e.g. filled with water (see column 3, lines 19-22)
; and Rantanen (‘497) teaches a revolving coating bar having a diameter of at least 18
mm, and optimally from about 25 to about 80 mm, that can be tubular (see column 3, lines
29-37, column 4, lines 17-20, 46-48 and column 5, lines 44-48). Accordingly, contrary to
appellants’ position, one of ordinary skill in this art would have found it obvious to employ a
large diameter, hollow tubular shaped coating bar of Rantanen (‘497) or Meinander in the
coating device and method of Rantanen (‘396) with a reasonable expectation of success.
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