Appeal No. 1997-3816
Application No. 08/512,313
matter recited in claim 1 except for the use of two
conventional press nips on the second press roller rather than
the single extended nip. However, the examiner takes the
position that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been
taught by Mirsberger that a single extended nip press can take
the place of a plurality of conventional nip presses, and
therefore would have found it obvious to modify the machine of
Laapotti ’762 by replacing the two conventional nip presses
labeled as N and N in Figure 1 with a single extended nip2 3
press. The appellant disputes this conclusion, urging that
Mirsberger is not entitled to so broad an interpretation.
As we understand the examiner’s position, it is that by
virtue of one sentence in the summary and the representations
in two of the Figures, one of ordinary skill the art would
have found it obvious to replace any pair of conventional nip
presses with a single extended nip press (see Answer, pages 4
and 6-8). We find this stance not to be supported in the
reference. In the summary section of the reference (PTO
translation, page 2), the following two sentences appear,
seriatim:
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