Appeal No. 1998-2804
Application No. 08/398,881
washed with water. We, therefore, sustain the obviousness
rejection of claims 35-39 over Swidler.
Regarding claims 17 and 21, appellants argue that Swidler
teaches away from the application of masking tape to the portions
of the surfaces which are not desired to be painted. See second
reply brief at pages 2 to 4 (paper no. 29) and the third reply
brief at pages 2 to 4 (paper no. 34). We agree with appellants
that Swidler does not show the use of masking tape to prevent the
strippable paint from getting on the unwanted portions of the
surface of the object. However, Swidler does not exclude a
procedure of using masking tape to protect the unwanted portions of
the surface from the paint. In our view, to use masking tape to
prevent the painting of an unwanted portion of a surface, would
have been obvious to an artisan, rather than first painting such a
portion of the surface and then removing the paint. Therefore, we
sustain the obviousness rejection of claims 17 and 21.
In conclusion, we have sustained the obviousness rejection of
claims 8-13, 17-18, 21 and 35-39 over Swidler. Accordingly, the
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