Appeal No. 2003-0220 Page 3
Application No. 09/478,871
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The appellant explains that prior art cushions from which vehicle airbags are
constructed comprise pairs of congruent circular pieces of fabric joined to one another
to form the two sides of a cushion, and that the common practice of cutting a plurality of
circles from a rectangular piece of fabric results in a great deal of waste, even when the
circles are spaced in touching relationship with one another. The improvement
provided by the appellant’s invention is to make the panels in the geometric shape of a
dodecagon, which is a polygon having twelve sides and twelve vertices. According to
the appellant, this provides better fabric utilization by reducing the waste between
adjacent panels, results in waste sections which have straight edges and therefore are
easier to use to make other fabric portions of the airbag system, and the linear edge
segments facilitate seaming operations by improving the ease with which cut panels
can be aligned as well as making folding operations simpler. In addition, if pairs of
panels are provided with shared uncut boundaries on one of the sides, the folding is
even more efficient and one less side need be sewn. Also, the dodecagon shape
requires minimal orientation to align the finished product with respect to any fold line to
facilitate storage of the uninflated cushion in an operative position in the vehicle.
The invention is manifested in claim 1 in the following manner:
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