Appeal No. 98-1314
Application No. 08/421,640
page 2). This argument, at the most, is relevant to claims
11-15 and 30-34 since these are the only claims which set
forth such values. Even with respect to these claims,
however, the appellants have made no showing that the
particular parameters recited therein are in any way critical
or achieve an unexpected result. As the court stated in In re
Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 1578, 16 USPQ2d 1934, 1936-37 (Fed.
Cir. 1990):
Nor can patentability be found in the difference in
. . . ranges recited in the claims. The law is
replete with cases in which the difference between
the claimed invention and the prior art is some
range or other variable within the claims. . . .
These cases have consistently held that in such a
situation, the applicant must show that the
particular range is critical, generally by showing
that the claimed range achieves unexpected results
relative to the prior art range . . . (obviousness
determination affirmed because dimensional
limitations in claims did not specify a device which
performed and operated differently from the prior
art). . . . [Citations omitted.]
Contrary to establishing any criticality for the claimed range
of Gurley force (claims 11-13 and claims 30-32) and the
relative peel removal forces (claims 14, 15, 33 and 34), the
specification merely states that (1) the spacing section "can
have" a Gurley thickness within the claimed range (see page
8
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