Appeal No. 2002-0502
Application 08/853,425
like, or by tape around their peripheral edges which is held in
place by stitching (col. 10, lines 26-48).3
Osborn discloses a sanitary napkin comprising an absorbent
means (13) which includes an absorbent core (34) between a liquid
permeable topsheet (25) and a liquid impermeable barrier
sheet (16) (col. 3, line 51 - col. 4, line 5). The absorbent
core preferably is made of hydrogel-forming material (col. 4,
lines 6-7). Osborn teaches (col. 4, lines 41-49):
The absorbent core 34 may be attached over the core’s
first or second major surfaces 46 and 49, respectively,
to adjacent members such as the topsheet 25 and barrier
sheet 16 by any of the means well known in the art,
such as by spray-gluing or lines or spots of adhesive.
Such attachment facilitates integrity and
recoverability of the absorbent materials in use so as
to maintain an optimum degree of absorbency.
The examiner argues that one of ordinary skill in the art
would have been led by Osborn to use an adhesive to attach
Heiman’s integral fabric web to the barrier sheet to facilitate
integrity of the absorbent barrier sheet and to reduce cost by
eliminating Heiman’s expensive binding and/or stitching
3 The appellant’s barrier material is intimately connected
to the integral fabric web by extrusion coating or laminating the
barrier material onto the lower fluid-retaining portion of the
integral fabric web (specification, page 7, lines 6-17).
4
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