Appeal No. 1997-3712
Application 08/474,340
one of ordinary skill in the art to use a metal foil laminate
pouch in Granowitz’s package because such a pouch is
conventional, and to make the pouch peelable if difficulty of
opening the pouch is of concern (final rejection, page 4).
Appellants argue, in reliance upon the Kaplan
declaration, that the prior art relied upon by the examiner3
would not have been interpreted by one of ordinary skill in
the art as teaching that a peelable metal foil laminate pouch
can be used for packaging an absorbable suture (brief, pages
15-17).
Kaplan argues that in the prior art, absorbable sutures
placed in foil laminates could be opened only by tearing
because they had weld seals produced by plastic flow (page 5).
The reason why the weld seals were used, Kaplan argues, is
that the thinnest heat seal possible and minimal linear seal
length were desired to minimize the permeation of moisture
into the package which would degrade the sutures (pages 4 and
11). Kaplan argues that appellants’ peel-open package
3 The Kaplan declaration was filed in parent application
no. 07/911,981 and included in the present application with
the preliminary amendment filed June 7, 1995, paper no. 3.
5
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