Appeal No. 1998-2817
Application No. 08/455,366
the elastic member, and (5) the material used to make the
sleeve, we must conclude that the scope of enablement of the
specification does not bear a “reasonable correlation” to the
scope of the claims.
Claims 1, 3 through 7, 9 through 13, 15 through 19, 21
through 26 and 28 through 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over the prior art described in the
appellants’ specification in view of Weil.
According to the appellants, samples 1 through 7,
described at pages 15-16 of the specification, “were
commercially purchased in late 1994 or early 1995” (see
specification, p. 16). Thus, samples 1 through 7 constitute
prior art under at least 35 U.S.C. § 102(a).
The differences between the prior art, i.e., samples 1
through 7, and the claims at issue is the decay of the elastic
waistband over a number of cycles. For example, claim 1
requires the closed loop waist elastic system to have a
maximum magnitude of decay of less than about 76.98 grams in
an extension range of about 300 millimeters over the first
three cycles while the maximum magnitude of decay for the same
26
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