Appeal No. 2004-1053
Application No. 09/772,409
obvious for one of ordinary skill in this art to have used the
adhesive of Hamerski for the foam adhesive of Hatton with the
expectation of similar results (id.).
Appellant argues that the foam adhesive taught by Hatton
serves a very express objective, namely to absorb the shear stress
by deflection, and therefore one of ordinary skill in this art
would not have been motivated to replace the foam adhesive of
Hatton (Brief, page 14; Reply Brief, page 5). This argument is not
well taken since, as noted by the examiner (Answer, sentence
bridging pages 12-13), Hatton does not teach that memory forces are
such an issue in every application of the invention that a foam
adhesive must be employed. We note that Hatton teaches, in one
embodiment (Figures 6A and 8A), that a single adhesive layer 162
may be used and this adhesive is preferably a pressure-sensitive
adhesive (col. 3, ll. 54-64 and col. 4, ll. 13-17). We also note
that appellant discloses that the present invention provides a
hanging device comprising a strip and a pressure sensitive adhesive
(specification, page 3, ll. 25-26). Therefore we determine no
difference between the adhesive taught by Hatton and the adhesive
used in the claimed hanging device. Even assuming arguendo a
difference in adhesives, we agree with the examiner that the use of
a different adhesive to achieve the same result in a hanging device
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