Appeal No. 2004-0572
Application 09/849,315
The subject matter on appeal relates to a method of
storing and handling rubber salvaged from discarded tire
carcasses. The method includes the steps of cutting the tire
carcasses into flat tire strips excluding sidewalls and stacking
the flat strips onto pallets in a plurality of abutting rubber-
to-rubber contact configurations. Further details of this
appealed subject matter are set forth in representative
independent claims 1 and 24, which read as follows1:
1. The environmentally safe method of storing and
handling batches of rubber pieces salvaged from discarded tire
carcasses in a bulk storage configuration obtained at low cost
for compact storage of residual bulk rubber at bulk storage sites
from which bulk rubber may be reclaimed in due course for
preparation of rubber products, comprising in combination the
steps of: cutting reclaimed tire carcasses into sets of
substantially flat storable sections of tire tread strips
excluding sidewalls, preparing pallets with loading platform
areas of specified length and width dimensions for retaining a
plurality of stacks of said substantially flat sections in a
storage configuration, and stacking a plurality of the storable
sections into said stacks in compact rubber-to-rubber interfacing
configurations with frictional resistance against movement of the
1 We observe that the appellant has inaccurately reproduced
the appealed claims in the Appendix of the Brief filed March 27,
2003. For example, the claim 24 reproduction in this Appendix
contains numerous errors of omission and in content. No useful
purpose would be served by identifying these reproduction errors.
Suffice it to say, therefore, that our disposition of this appeal
is based upon the actual language of the appealed claims pending
in this application.
2
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