Appeal No. 98-1038
Application 08/438,512
William J. Cooper appeals from the final rejection
of claims 1, 2 and 7, all of the claims pending in the
application. We reverse.
The invention relates to a plastic fastener of the sort
used in the retail industry to attach tags to articles of
clothing. Claim 1 is illustrative and reads as follows:
1. A fastener adapted for attachment to a sheet of
material, said fastener comprising a unitary plastic member
shaped to include an elongated filament having a cross bar at
one end thereof, said cross bar being insertable through the
sheet of material and engageable with the opposite side
thereof to retain said fastener thereon, said cross bar being
sufficiently short in length so that, once said cross bar has
been inserted through an installation hole in the sheet of
material, said cross bar cannot easily be manipulated in such
a way as to be aligned with and withdrawn through the
installation hole, said cross bar having a length of
approximately 0.1 inch.
The references relied upon by the examiner as evidence of
obviousness are:
Bone (Bone '666) 3,103,666 Sept. 17,
1963
Bone et al. (Bone '854) 4,901,854 Feb.
20, 1990
Claims 1 and 2 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Bone '854, and claim 7 stands rejected
2
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