Appeal No. 2001-0731
Application No. 08/904,868
respective positions. This review leads us to conclude that the Examiner’s § 103 rejections
are not well founded.
A fatal deficiency common to all of the rejections is the Examiner’s position that it
would have been obvious to utilize the teachings of Schneberger to make pressure sensitive
cleaning sheet with an adhesive that is substantially non-tacky upon release of pressure to
allow the sheet to be repositioned.
We do not believe the Schneberger reference would have suggested that the pressure
sensitive adhesive sheet would have been substantially non-tacky upon release of pressure.
The Examiner asserts the porous sheet, i.e., pore size, number of pores and arrangement of
pores, can be selected depending on the nature of the adhesive used. It is true that
Schneberger discloses that the characteristics of the porous layer can be varied depending on
the adhesive. (Col. 3, l. 63 to col. 4, l. 4.) However, we do not perceive and the Examiner
has not explained why the selection of a porous layer that would have rendered the pressure
sensitive sheet substantially non-tacky upon release of pressure would have obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art. The mere fact that the prior art could be modified, to select a
particular porous layer, would not have made the modification obvious unless the prior art
suggested the desirability of the modification. In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ
1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 1984); In re Laskowski, 871 F.2d 115, 117, 10 USPQ2d 1397, 1398
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