Appeal No. 1999-0124
Application No. 08/467,438
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on an appeal from the examiner’s final
rejection of claims 7-11, 19, 21, 23, 24 and 27-32, all the
claims currently pending in the application.
Background
Appellants’ invention pertains to “[a] liquid management
member[] that facilitate[s] desired anisotropic or
directionally dependent distribution of liquids . . .”
(specification, page 3). More specifically, appellants’
liquid management member comprises a film of impermeable
material having at least one microstructure-bearing
hydrophilic surface that promotes directional spreading of1
liquids. Appellants’ microstructures are in the form of a
1Reference is made to page 7, line 37 through page 8,
line 23 of appellants’ specification, where the terms
“hydrophilic” and “contact angle” as used in the present
application are defined. In particular, “contact angle” is
defined as “the angle between a line tangent to the surface of
a bead of liquid on a surface at its point of contact to the
surface and the plane of the surface” (page 8, lines 6-9) and
“hydrophilic” is defined as "[s]urfaces on which drops of
water or aqueous solutions exhibit a contact angle of less
than 90E" (page 8, lines 14-15).
2
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