Appeal No. 2001-0344
Application 08/900,254
No temperatures, suitable materials, or examples wherein the process is
conducted are found within the four corners of the specification, leaving those details to
be understood by the person of ordinary skill in the art.
B. The Rejection
The Examiner notes in the rejection that Yamamoto discloses forming paper-like
polyester sheets of drawn and undrawn fibers and pressing the sheets using a heated
calender roll (Examiner’s Answer, page 4, lines 4-10). The Examiner additionally notes
at page 5, lines 4 – 11 that
it would have been obvious in the art to calender the paper-like sheet using
profiled calender rolls to form a pleated filter sheet in the process of Yamamoto
et al because: a) Yamamoto et al discloses that the paper-like sheet can be
impregnated with a resinous material, calendered, etc. (col. 5 lines 1-4); b)
Norton discloses forming corrugated (pleated) paper filter by calendering a
fibrous sheet using a pair of profiled calender rolls (figures 1-2); and c) it is well
within the purview of choice in the art to choose from known methods based on
their suitability for their intended purpose or use, none but the expected result of
effectively forming a pleated filter would have been achieved.
In response, the Appellant states that the rejection is flawed in that Yamamoto
teaches away from the invention, and the proposed combinations fail to disclose all of
the limitations of the claims (Appeal Brief, page 3, lines 9-10).
The basic thrust of Appellants’ argument is that as Yamamoto teaches that
crimping of fibers is undesirable, one would then not be led to perform a calendering
step such as that of Norton as it crimps the fibers. Oddly, this position is advocated
even though Yamamoto expressly suggests that:
The paper-like polyester fiber sheet of the present invention may be impregnated
with a resinous material, laminated with other materials, calendered, embossed,
or creped. The processed paper-like sheet can be used as a pattern sheet, a
leather-like sheet, a sheet for making artificial flowers, an adhesive tape, a wall
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007