Appeal No. 2004-0446
Application No. 09/747,601
lines 57-59 in column 15, lines 39-41 in column 16, lines 19-21
in column 17 and lines 11-13 in column 18 of the Ewall patent.
In light of these explicit and repeated teachings of Ewall,
we fully agree with the examiner’s finding that patentee’s layer
17 includes fabric embodiments and thus fibers which fully
satisfy the reinforcing fibers requirements of appealed
independent claims 1 and 23.
The appellants also disagree with the examiner’s previously
discussed conclusion of obviousness. It is the appellants’ basic
position that the applied prior art contains no teaching or
suggestion for combining Ewall and Scholz (i.e., in the manner
proposed by the examiner) based upon a reasonable expectation of
success. As reflected by his aforequoted obviousness conclusion,
the examiner believes an artisan with ordinary skill would have
been motivated to provide the non-woven fabric and reinforcing
fibers of Ewall with the microcreping technique taught by Scholz
“for the purpose of providing stretchability and conformability
to the fabric (col. 4, lines 32-35)” (answer, page 4). In
response, the appellants advance the following argument on page
11 of the brief:
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