Appeal No. 2000-1435 3
Application No. 08/601,785
Aubert 5,422,377 Jun. 06, 1995
Polyurethane Handbook: Chemistry-Raw Material-Processing
Properties, pp. 248-49 (Hansen Pub., New York, 1985).
Claims 1 through 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over the Polyurethane Handbook in
view of Aubert, Martini-Vvedensky, or Cha.
OPINION
For the reasons set forth in appellants’ brief and reply
brief, and below, we reverse the aforementioned rejection.
On page 6 of the brief, appellants state that none of the
references teach the aspect of their claimed invention regarding
cells having a dimension in a direction parallel to the opposed
surfaces greater than a dimension in a direction parallel to the
thickness dimension (expansion in only the thickness direction).
Appellants also state that none of the references teach
saturating the preformed object with a fluid in an atmosphere at
a predetermined ambient pressure, and then reducing the ambient
pressure to a pressure at which the preformed object is
supersaturated with the fluid. We agree.
We further note that the excerpt on page 249 of the
Polyurethane Handbook teaches that the cells are elongated in the
direction of the rise which is opposite of the requirement set
forth in appellants’ claim 1, for example. The examiner
recognizes this deficiency in the Polyurethane Handbook but
states, on page 5 of the answer, that, “[w]ith regard to
thickness dimension [it] is deemed that one skilled in the art
would consider the thickness dimension and the cell formation
therein would be well within the skill of the routineer to
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