Appeal No. 2004-0567
Serial No. 09/628,704
household surfaces, such as furniture and appliances” (col. 1,
lines 29-32). The tack cloths comprise a sheet of woven or
nonwoven fibrous material and at least 3 wt% pressure sensitive
adhesive which can be an acrylic polymer (page 7, lines 4-7
and 15-19; page 15, lines 16-18). The nonwoven fibrous material
may be a highly entangled multi-layer carded fiber web (page 9,
line 35 - page 10, line 14). Schoonen does not disclose that the
nonwoven web can be needle tacked and does not disclose the
thickness of the tack cloth.
The examiner argues that “Pässler et al. is used to pick up
dirt (column 1, lines 35-37)” (answer, page 6). This portion of
Pässler does not state that the cleaning cloth is used to pick up
dirt but, rather, states that “[i]n use, the surface of the
cleaning cloth provided with the rubber strips serves to remove
coarser dirt through the scraperlike action of the rubber
strips.”
The examiner argues that it would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art to include Schoonen’s pressure
sensitive adhesive tackifier in Pässler’s cleaning cloth to
improve the holding capacity of the cleaning cloth for dust or
other similar matter (answer, pages 4-6). This argument is not
well taken because, as discussed above, Pässler’s cleaning cloth
is designed for scraping off dirt and absorbing water, not for
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