Appeal No. 1998-0853
Application No. 08/381,364
to do so, we are constrained to reverse the examiner's rejection of claim 1, as well as claims 2-
10 which depend from claim 1.
We have reviewed the teachings of Suzuki but find therein no suggestion to feed the
ribbons of Schroth at a speed which differs from that of the web. Therefore, we also reverse
the examiner's rejection of claims 30 and 68 as being unpatentable over Schroth in view of
Bosse, the APA and Suzuki.
REMAND TO THE EXAMINER
We remand this application to the examiner for consideration of the following issues:
(1) Are any of the claims unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. 5,091,039 issued to Ujimoto et
al. on February 25, 1992 (hereinafter "Ujimoto") ? 4
Ujimoto discloses a method and apparatus for applying elastic bands 5 onto a moving
web 8 in manufacturing garments such as disposable diapers, diaper-covers and training pants
(column 1, lines 18-21). The method comprises feeding, at a position Î, a continuous elastic
band to a rotatable transfer means 11 comprising suction members 12 carried by respective
rotor elements 26, severing the elastic bands into predetermined lengths to form pieces and
transporting the pieces of elastic bands on the suction members at a progressively accelerated
speed to a position Ò, at which the continuous web 8 is tangentially brought into contact with
the pieces and the pieces are transferred onto the web under synchronization of the transporting
4This reference was cited by the appellants in Paper No. 2 and a copy is of record in the application file.
6
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