Appeal No. 2004-0572
Application 09/849,315
carcasses are cut into sets of substantially flat storable
sections, these sections include sidewalls as well as tire tread
strips (e.g., see the paragraph bridging columns 6 and 7). It is
the Examiner’s conclusion, however, that it would have been
obvious for one having an ordinary level of skill in the art to
modify this cutting step so as to remove the sidewalls from the
tire carcasses, thereby leaving substantially flat storable
sections of only tire tread strips, in view of Pignataro’s
teaching of such a cutting step.
More specifically, Pignataro discloses a method of
removing sidewalls from tire carcasses and stacking the resulting
tread strips into a flat configuration on a truck storage bed for
transportation to a central recycling facility (e.g., see
Figure 4 and lines 51-64 in column 3). These stacked tread
strips are ultimately recycled in the form of various
construction products (e.g., see the Abstract as well as
Figures 5-20 and the Specification disclosure relating thereto
in the Pignataro reference). Thus, the issue presented by the
rejection before us is whether an artisan with ordinary skill
would have found it obvious to modify Miller’s cutting step so as
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