Appeal No. 1997-4392
Application No. 08/639,515
suggest a method of producing a fabric with loops as claimed in appellant’s claim 12. Neither Altman
nor Eschenbach disclose maintaining a spacing between adjacent core and effect
type yarns and running a plurality of such yarns “in a sheet” past an adhesive applicator thereby
placing a thin layer of adhesive on the yarns so that the adhesive spans the space between the yarns,
and some of the loops from one yarn adhere to loops of the next adjacent yarn. Altman’s mere
suggestion of utilizing any suitable securing method to attach the loopy yarn 16 to the sheet 11 clearly
does not provide such a teaching. Not only has the examiner speculated from this very general
statement that the use of an adhesive would have been obvious, but we find that the examiner further
used impermissible hindsight, speculation and conjecture to further suggest application of any such
adhesive via “spraying or [using] hot melt preform adhesive film” in an attempt to arrive at the claimed
method limitation of running a sheet of the core and effect type yarn past an adhesive applicator such
that the adhesive spans the space between the yarns and some of the loops from one yarn adhere to
loops of the next adjacent yarn.
The examiner also “acknowledge[s] that the present invention does not require a sheet
(backing) as taught by Altman” (answer, pg 8), but that the invention does not exclude the use of such a
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