Appeal No. 2003-0992
Application 09/934,026
Therefore, we will do the same here, but the problem should be taken care of upon return of the
involved application to the examiner subsequent to this appeal. We reject the examiner’s
apparent position that if a conductive material like the spike of Kuhns passes through Dresen’s
upper layer of anti-slip material, then the spike can be deemed as the top layer. The spike is
located only on discrete locations and would extend through the bottom layer of Dresen, a non-
conductive plastic, as well. The conductive spike of Kuhns cannot be reasonably regarded as the
top layer of a two layer structure when it is passed through Dresen’s bed liner as is suggested by
the examiner.
Claim 8 depends on claim 6 and recites that the plastic material comprises two layers and
the conductive material is dispersed throughout one of said two layers. Claim 13 depends on
claim 11 and recites that the non-conductive material comprises two layers and said conductive
material is dispersed throughout one of said two layers. We do not see any discussion by the
examiner of the feature articulated in these two claims, either in the final rejection (Paper No. 7)
or in the examiner’s answer (Paper No. 13). The closest discussion by the examiner is that
pertaining to claim 3, wherein the examiner identifies the anti-slip material of Dresen as the first
layer and the non-conductive plastic beneath the anti-slip material as the second layer. It is
evident that if and when the conductive spikes of Kuhns are passed through the bed liner material
of Dresen, neither the spikes nor the conductive particles within the spikes are dispersed
throughout either the top anti-slip layer or the bottom non-conductive plastic layer of Dresen.
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