Appeal No. 2003-1406 Page 5
Application No. 09/335,723
distinguishable features, “appellant[s] cannot rely on them to
establish patentability.” See In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1350-
1351, 213 USPQ 1, 7 (CCPA 1982).
Furthermore, appellant contends that the examiner’s reliance
on the thermomolded central hinge (23a) as shown in drawing
figure 24 of Buell to establish the obviousness of the here
claimed bonded edges is misplaced. In this regard, appellant
contends in the reply brief that the examiner is using the same
feature (23A, figure 24) of Buell to read on appellant’s separate
edges of the first and second bifurcated segments. The
difficulty we have with appellant’s position stems from the fact
that representative claim 18 calls for the edges of the separate
segments to be bonded to each other. In other words, the claimed
final product does not require bifurcated segments each having
edges to be subsequently bonded but rather requires that the
edges of those once separate segments have been bonded to each
other. Such bonding results in a final product element having a
broadly defined shape that reasonably embraces the shape of the
product depicted in figure 24 of Buell as has been determined by
the examiner.
While we agree with appellant that the product of figure 24
of Buell may have been made by a somewhat different process than
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