Appeal No. 1996-0743
Application 08/152,741
general proposition, it would not have been obvious to provide
remoistenable glue at adhesive strip 57 on Stewart’s return
envelope flap, there remains the question of providing
remoistenable glue at Stewart’s adhesive strip 47, used on the
closure flap of the first mailed envelope. Stewart describes
this adhesive strip as being “an activatable adhesive for
example a wetable adhesive or a two-part adhesive or a two-
sided tape with a release strip 46 as shown” (column 3, lines
13-15; emphasis added). To the extent “wetable” adhesive is
not “remoistenable” adhesive as claimed, it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a
conventional remoistenable glue at Stewart’s adhesive strip 47
in view of Sauerwine’s teaching at column 4, lines 22-26, that
adhesive 40 for envelope flap 39 may be “any type of adhesive
that can be activated by the end user to form a sealed return
envelope, such as rewettable adhesive, or pressure sensitive
adhesive covered by a release liner strip” (emphasis added).
In this regard, the circumstance that Sauerwine’s adhesive 40
is used to close the flap of Sauerwine’s return envelope is
not seen as limiting that teaching to the closure flaps of
-9-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007