Appeal No. 1998-2129 Page 7
Application No. 08/561,816
Consequently, we reverse the rejection under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b).
Rejection under § 103(a)
The roofing material products specified in each of claims
1-7 require a plurality of nail tabs made of thermoplastic or
thermosetting material. Like the Meeker patent discussed
above, the additionally applied Zerfass patent simply does not
teach or suggest such nail tabs as herein claimed.
Recognizing this deficiency of the teachings of the Zerfass
patent, the examiner turns, once again, to Meeker (answer,
page 4) in a futile attempt to supply evidence establishing
the obviousness of the claimed nail tabs. However, for
reasons noted above, our review of Meeker reveals that the
thermoplastic resinous material portion of the fibrous product
described in that patent does not make up for the lack of a
teaching of a plurality of nail tabs in Zerfass.
From our perspective, the examiner has not satisfactorily
explained why one of ordinary skill in the art would have been
led to modify the product of Zerfass in light of the teachings
of Meeker so as to arrive at the herein claimed roofing
material product containing nail tabs. In this regard, the
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