Appeal No. 1999-0114
Application No. 08/656,286
and further in view of Plante; and
(c) claim 15, unpatentable over Weiss in view of Cosmo,
and further in view of Akerstrom.
Weiss, the examiner’s primary reference, pertains to an
apparatus for combining together several individual items, for
example, milk cartons, into a unitary package 2, wherein the
individual items are secured together by an encircling band
10. In rejecting independent claim 11 as being unpatentable
over Weiss in view of Cosmo, the examiner considers that the
manner in which the apparatus of Weiss applies the bands to
the individual items corresponds to the claimed method, except
that Weiss does not provide contact adhesive to bond the edges
of the wrapper. According to the examiner, it would have1
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in view of
Cosmo to substitute contact adhesive for the adhesive 14, 15
of Weiss “to provide a more secure and removable package”
(answer, page 3). Implicit in the rejection is the examiner’s
position that the modified Weiss method would correspond to
1The examiner also considers that Weiss does not disclose
heat shrinking the wrapper about the products, or cutting the
wrapper from a roll; however, independent claim 11 does not
require either of these steps.
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