Appeal No. 1997-0449
Application 08/380,244
shingle?” (answer, page 3). It thus appears that the examiner
considers it to be improper to refer to the release material
affixed to an exposed face of the shingle body as being “a
portion . . . of a roll of release material,” as called for in
claim 13.
Appellants’ argument against this rejection is found on
page 20 of the brief and reads as follows:
Before the application of the release material and
the indicia to the shingle, they existed in a roll
of release material, with the indicia preprinted on
the release material. As that roll was unrolled and
cut into segments, or “portions”, as recited in
claim 13, the indicia and release material are
together applied to the shingle. Once unrolled and
applied to the shingle they form a unit with the
shingle, but such indicia and release material
still, taken together comprise a preprinted portion
of a roll of release material. . . . [W]hat is being
claimed here is not anything that is still in a
roll; merely that the indicia and release material
were once in a roll, and now comprise a “portion” of
the roll of which they were once a part.
While we appreciate appellants’ point that the indicia
and release material may have existed as a roll of preprinted
release material prior to being applied to the shingle body,
this circumstance is not brought out by the language of claim
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