Appeal No. 2000-0791 Page 5
Application No. 08/858,286
Independent claims 1 and 9 each require that both the base ply and the tear-
resistant liner have “exposed and underside faces” (emphasis added). We begin our
analysis of this issue by pointing out that the common definition of “exposed” is “open to
1
view.” Breen discloses a baggage tag in which the liner (30) clearly has a face that is
open to view. However, that is not the case with element designated by the examiner to
correspond to the base ply (sheet 20), in which both faces are in engagement with other
layers of the tag. Therefore, the base ply does not have an “exposed” face, that is, a face
open to view, as is required by these two claims. In fact, Breen appears to be exactly the
type of luggage tag over which the appellant believes his invention to be an improvement,
in that it has one layer more than the appellant’s tag (see appellant’s Figures 3 and 4 and
Breen’s Figure 3).
All of the elements recited in the claim thus are not disclosed in Breen, and the
rejection under Section 102 of independent claims 1 and 9 and dependent claims 2-4 and
10-13 cannot be sustained.
The Rejection Under 35 U.S.C. § 103
Claims 5-8 stand rejected under this section of the statute. The test for
obviousness is what the combined teachings of the prior art would have suggested to one
1See, for example, Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, 1996,
page 410.
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