Appeal No. 99-0920
Application No. 08/629,323
obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art to modify the
European reference process by replacing the step of applying
adhesive to the elastic members with the step of providing
adhesive zones on the web in those areas where the elastic
members are to be disposed in view of Dickover who teaches
that it is known in this art to apply adhesive to either the
elastic members or the web (e.g., see lines 30 through 34 in
column 9).
With respect to independent claims 20 and 29, it is the
appellants’ basic position that the above discussed
modification proposed by the examiner would not have been
obvious because “the Dickover et al patent neither discloses,
teaches nor suggests the feature of curvilinear adhesive
zones” and more particularly in this last mentioned respect
because “the adhesive zones in Figure 15 of the ‘217 patent
[i.e., the Dickover patent] are linear in nature and there is
no explicit teaching in that patent of curvilinear adhesive
zones as presently claimed” (brief, page 4). This position is
not well founded for a number of reasons. In the first place,
as correctly indicated by the examiner in his answer, the
teachings of Dickover in combination with those of the
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