Appeal No. 1997-4279 Application No. 08/486,702 We reverse the rejection of claim 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the German reference in view of Klebanow and Wahnschaff. Claim 15, dependent from claim 1, adds the feature of "at least one vacuum belt connected to a source of low pressure for removing the overlapped sheets and adhesive coating material from the transferring means." Clearly, the Wahnschaff document (Fig. 1) reveals that the utilization of a suction conveyor 21 in the coating art is a known expedient for transporting coated sheets of material such that the sheets cling to the conveyor. However, as can be readily discerned from the Wahnschaff disclosure, suction is applied exclusively to the upper flight of a conveyor belt 35, downstream of a coating station. Thus, even if the apparatus of the German reference incorporated a suction conveyor it would appropriately be applied downstream of a coating station, following the teaching of Wahnschaff. Thus, the combined teachings would not effect a vacuum belt for removing overlapped sheets and adhesive coating material "from 10Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007