Appeal No. 1999-0822 6
Application No. 08/732,866
The Rejection under § 103(a)
It is the position of the appellant that a prima facie case of obviousness has not
been established. The appellant argues that, “Bistak et al. teach an article for placement
in an automobile which is rigid, impact resistant, and sound-deadening (in particular, see
col. 2, lines 54-68) and which utilizes thermoplastic adhesives to apply a carpet material
to an extruded mixture of vulcanized thermoplastic elastomers, cellulose, and other
admixed ingredients, including co-extruded (and not layered) polypropylene
homopolymer.” See Brief, page 6. We disagree.
We find that the basic article required by the claimed subject matter is disclosed in
Example 1. The example discloses an extrudable composition comprising polypropylene
homopolymer, and a crosslinked EPDM containing 60/40 EPDM/polypropylene by
weight among a limited number of other components. We find that the components are
premixed and extruded. See column 9, lines 13-14. We find the extruded mixture has
a thickness of 1.6 mm corresponding to more than 60 mils. Thereafter, “[a] thin (about
0.003 inch thick) polypropylene copolymer film was adhered to the surface of the sheet
in the cooling stack to provide better adhesion for the carpet material to be applied
during molding.” See column 9, lines 19-23. We find that polypropylene carpet is
applied and the article is molded.
Applying these findings to the claimed subject matter, we conclude that the
extruded mixture corresponds to at least one layer of thermoplastic rubber dispersed in a
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