Appeal No. 2002-0741
Application No. 08/935,348
filing date, and that, as a consequence, Zacharias PCT ‘238 is
available as prior art against claims 13-19 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b).
In rejecting claim 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the examiner
relies on Vukos (see page 25, lines 16-24) and Lichstein (see
paragraph bridging columns 6 and 7) for their disclosures of
appropriate lengths and widths for absorbent sanitary protection
products, and Lichstein (see column 7, line 45, through column 8,
line 39) for its teaching of appropriate coating weight of
adhesives for attaching an absorbent sanitary protection product
directly to hair and/or skin. The examiner concludes that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
provide the sanitary protection article of Zacharias PCT ‘238
with longitudinal and transverse dimensions within the claimed
range, and with the adhesive weight within the claimed range, in
view of the teachings of Vukos and Lichstein noted above.
The examiner’s position is reasonable on its face and has
not been disputed with any reasonable degree of specificity by
appellants. In this regard, appellants’ general argument on
pages 18-19 of the main brief to the effect that neither Vukos
nor Lichstein disclose all of the limitations found in the
paragraph (c) of claim 20 is not persuasive of error on the
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