Appeal No. 2000-1455
Application 08/911,913
1429, 1431 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
The § 102(b) rejection therefore will not be sustained.
§ 103(a) Rejection
The basis of this rejection as stated by the examiner in
the examiner’s answer is not particularly clear.
Nevertheless, since Hausch does not teach or suggest the use
of a TPE, as recited in claim 1, and the examiner has cited no
other evidence from which it might be concluded that it would
have been obvious to make any of the mats disclosed by Hausch
out of a TPE, the rejection will not be sustained.
Rejection Pursuant to 37 CFR 1.196(b)
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Hausch in view of the Handbook. As
discussed above, Hausch discloses a prior art elastic mat
having a layer of nonwoven fabric coated with a “carrier” of
foamed plastic with suction cups attached to its bottom side.
Since this disclosed mat is elastic, and TPEs are well known
elastic polymers which may be foamed, as disclosed on pages
7.1, 7.2, 7.40 (last line) and 7.41 of the Handbook, it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
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