Appeal No. 1997-0427
Application 08/296,427
adhesive layer. Indeed, it appears that the examiner dismissed this limitation as it
appears in product claims 1-18 in her statement at page 7 of the Examiner's Answer that
claims 1-18 are "not method of making claims, but product claims." While this statement
is undoubtedly true, its relevance is not seen. Claims 1-18 contain as a positive structural
limitation the requirement that the porous sheet be embedded with the pressure-sensitive
adhesive layer in the specified manner. Medical adhesive sheets made of the same
components but in which the porous sheet is not embedded with the pressure-sensitive
adhesive layer as specified are not within the scope of the claims on appeal.
The examiner was under the burden to either explain why one following the
teachings of Akemi would necessarily arrive at a medical adhesive sheet having all of the
requirements of the claims on appeal or why one of ordinary skill in the art would have
found it obvious to modify the disclosure of Akemi to arrive at such a medical adhesive
sheet. The examiner has not done so on this record.
As a final point, we note that our determination that the examiner has not
established a prima facie case of obviousness means that we need not consider the
declaration filed under 37 CFR § 1.132.
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