Appeal No. 1999-2102 Page 5
Application No. 08/715,990
on the dispenser for facilitating separation of the sheets, much less that there be a tongue
for engaging slots located at the separation lines in the paper.
Richardson is directed to a carton for dispensing plastic bags from a roll that is
contained therein. The bags are pulled over an edge of the carton that is provided with a
1
protruding tab (25) upon which the perforation lines between bags are “impaled” (column
3, line 54) in such a fashion that it “restrains withdrawal of the succeeding bag to allow
separation of the bags” (column 4, lines 14-16). There is no teaching of utilizing a roll of
bags which have elongated slots at the separation lines between bags.
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See, for example, In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,
425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner to provide a reason why one of ordinary
skill in the art would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to combine reference
teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973
(Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some
teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure.
1The applicable common definition of “impaled” is “pierced.” See, for example,
Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, 1999, page 581.
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