Appeal No. 2003-058
Application 09/390,190
bags having a reclosable plastic zipper. The examiner focuses on
the machine’s cross seal jaws which are described in the
reference as follows:
[r]eferring now to FIG. 5, . . . cross seal jaws
64 seal the top of the bag or package 66 being made (in
an upside-down orientation) as well as the bottom of
the previous package 68. In other words, the lower end
of the zipper 36 shown in the figures is on the upper
edge of the finished packages. A knife 69 within cross
seal jaws 64 separates the packages 66, 68 after the
seals are made. Cross seal jaws 64 are also indicated
in FIGS. 2 and 3.
Cross seal jaws 64 also seal the webs 56 of the
male and female zipper profiles 44, 46 to the plastic
sheet material 10 [column 6, lines 22 through 33].
The examiner’s determination (see page 2 in the final
rejection and pages 5 through 7 in the answer) that the subject
matter recited in independent claim 1 is anticipated by Malin is
not well founded. Anticipation is established only when a single
prior art reference discloses, expressly or under principles of
inherency, each and every element of a claimed invention. RCA
Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444,
221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Notwithstanding the
examiner’s findings to the contrary, Malin’s rather brief and
non-detailed disclosure of the cross seal jaws 64 does not
respond to the limitations in claim 1 requiring the recited
reclose module (1) to be a single unit that can be installed on
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