Appeal No. 1999-2102 Page 3
Application No. 08/715,990
positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner, and the guidance provided by our
reviewing court. As a consequence of our review, we make the determinations which
follow.
The appellant’s invention is directed to “[a] dispenser for dispensing and separating
a plastic bag from a roll of plastic bags which includes separation lines between adjacent
bags and an elongated slot in the separation line” (claim 11, lines 1-3). According to the
appellant, the objective of the invention is to solve problems that exist in the prior art
devices, which include dispensing and separating the bags with one-handed operation,
retaining the next bag in an easily accessible position, and preventing free-wheeling of the
continuous web during the dispensing operation (Brief, pages 3 and 4). As manifested in
the body of claim 11, the invention comprises a pair of spaced apart, shaped tracks for
receiving the opposite ends of an axle upon which a roll of bags is carried, with the tracks
being positioned so that the axle can fall within the tracks under the influence of gravity, a
back wall having a surface that contacts the outer surface of the roll of bags and provides a
braking force to the roll when the bags are to be separated, a tongue for engaging the slot
in the separation line between bags to enable a bag to be separated, and wherein the
tracks are shaped so that a frictional component of force exerted by the roll against the
back wall surface due to the weight of the roll relative to a component transverse thereto is
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