Appeal No. 2002-1222
Application 09/049,908
thread-up conveyor with the reasonable expectation of transporting the leading edge of a tissue
web of a second parent roll to the desired position in the tissue web manufacturing process
relative to the tissue web from the unwinding first parent roll. Thus, one of ordinary skill in this
art would have reasonably arrived at the claimed method of splicing tissue webs encompassed by
appealed claim 29 including each and every limitation arranged as required by this claim as we
have interpreted it above, without recourse to appellants’ specification. See Dow. Chem., supra;
Keller, supra.
Accordingly, since a prima facie case of obviousness has been established over the
combined teachings of Anderson and Sohma with respect to appealed claim 25, and over the
combined teachings of Anderson, Sohma and Baker with respect to appealed claim 29, we have
again evaluated all of the evidence of obviousness and nonobviousness based on the record as a
whole, giving due consideration to the weight of appellants’ arguments in the brief and reply
brief. See generally, In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir.
1992); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
We have carefully considered all of appellants’ arguments which apply to appealed claim
25 (brief, pages 13-21). We found above (see p. 8) that, as pointed out by the examiner (answer,
page 14), the method of Anderson is employed with a soft tissue web and not “paper” as
appellants contend (brief, page 14; see also page 19). Indeed, contrary to appellants’ position
(id.), we interpreted appealed claim 25 to require only “tissue webs” (see above p. 7), thus
encompassing the soft tissue webs of Anderson. We are also unconvinced by appellants’
arguments (brief, pages 14-15) that one of ordinary skill in this art would not have considered the
unwind stand of Sohma with respect to unwinding tissue webs from parent rolls simply on the
basis that Sohma employs the unwind stand disclosed therein with parent rolls containing paper.
Indeed, Sohma is analogous prior art inasmuch as it is within the field of appellants’ endeavor
and is reasonably pertinent to the particular problem of the movement of webs for splicing
purposes which appellants are attempting to solve. See In re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 23 USPQ2d
1058, 1060-61 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Furthermore, contrary to appellants’ arguments, there is no
requirement for “breaking the expired tissue web” (brief, page 15) in any claim on appeal
including appealed claim 25; the apparatus components noted by appellants (id., e.g., page 15)
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