Appeal No. 1998-0246
Application No. 08/397,536
27 of the appellant's specification, the appellant's invention involves laying cut wound dressings
68 onto a faster moving envelope web 69 to thereby increase the spacing between the pieces
68. Although Dallaserra faces this problem in a field of endeavor which may not be the same
as the appellant's field of endeavor, Dallaserra also addresses the problem of spacing articles
cut from a continuous web and laid onto a moving envelope web by feeding the envelope web
at a speed greater than that at which the cut articles are fed. Thus, as we see it, one of
ordinary skill in the art of packaging wound dressings, faced with the problem of achieving
spacing between the cut swatches 22 in the Petersen method to accommodate sealing
therebetween, would have considered the teachings of Dallaserra with regard to the relative
feed velocities of the insert material and the wrapping sheets particularly pertinent in packaging
wound dressing material within upper and lower wrapping sheets.
We understand the appellant's argument (brief, pages 4 and 5) that the severing
techniques disclosed by Dallaserra, involving sudden acceleration or acceleration followed by
deceleration, may not be acceptable for use with wound dressings. We must point out,
however, that all of the features of the secondary reference need not be bodily incorporated
into the primary reference (see In re Keller, 642 F.2d at 425, 208 USPQ at 881) and the
artisan is not compelled to blindly follow the teaching of one prior art reference over the other
without the exercise of independent judgment (see Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Aeroquip Corp., 733
F.2d 881, 889, 221 USPQ 1025, 1032 (Fed. Cir. 1984)). Moreover, skill is presumed on the
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