Appeal No. 97-1836
Application No. 08/324,818
as an example of the type of system over which they believe
their invention to be an improvement. It is the examiner’s
position that Sims discloses all of the structure set forth in
the three independent claims except for the direct attachment
of the contact component to the absorbent dressing component,
but that Gilman
teaches that direct attachment of a removable
absorbent layer from [sic] a wound contact component
would have been obvious . . . in order to improve
the contact between the two devices over the whole
surfaces thereof and for the same reasons that
Gilman ('362) does the same (Answer, page 4).
We have a number of problems with this conclusion.
Sims is illustrative of the prior art, in that it teaches
a two-step process in which a substantially non-adherent
contact component is installed upon the wound and then is
covered with an absorbent dressing component. There is no
teaching of attaching the dressing component to the contact
component, much less releasably attaching it thereto, as is
required by all of the independent claims on appeal. Gilman
discloses a number of embodiments of a dressing in which the
primary objective is to allow the wound to be vented. The
examiner refers specifically to the embodiment of Figure 7,
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