Appeal No. 1998-0246
Application No. 08/397,536
OPINION
In arriving at our decision on the obviousness issues raised in this appeal, we have
given careful consideration to the appellant's specification and claims1, the teachings of the
applied prior art references, the evidence supplied by the appellant, and the respective positions
articulated by the appellant and the examiner. Having reviewed all of the evidence before us,
we make the determinations which follow.
Turning first to the examiner's rejection of claims 17, 19 and 22-24 as being
unpatentable over Petersen in view of Dallaserra. Petersen discloses a method of packaging
surgical dressings, such as absorbent gauze and cut bandages and the like (column 1, lines 12-
14). The Peterson method includes the steps of feeding a ribbon 10 of absorbent cotton or
surgical gauze to feed rollers 12, 13 and cutting the ribbon into swatches of cotton or gauze
using cut-off rollers 18, 19 having knives 20, 21. The piece of cotton or gauze enters between
rollers 24, 25 before it is cut off by the knives 20, 21. As seen in Figure 1, the rollers 24, 25
also feed top and bottom heat sealable sheets 26, 27, which form upper and lower wrapping
sheets 32, 33, with the cut swatches of cotton or gauze carried therebetween, to sealing rollers
35, 36, which help form a substantially perfect seal in the areas 51, 52 along the edges of the
strip 32 and spaces 53 between the swatches 22. Petersen does not disclose how the cut
1 In claim 17, line 20, "the product" lacks clear antecedent basis. Based on a reading of the claim as a
whole, we interpret "the product" as referring back to the "wound dressing product web" mentioned in lines 2 and 6
of claim 17. Likewise, we also interpret "web product" in claims 19 and 20, line 2, as referring back to the "wound
dressing product web."
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