Appeal No. 2004-1174
Application No. 09/470,793
In the rejection of the appealed claims, the examiner relies
upon the following references:
Pierce et al. (Pierce) 4,490,147 Dec. 25, 1984
Abuto et al. (Abuto) 5,964,743 Oct. 12, 1999
Appellant's claimed invention is directed to a disposable
sanitary napkin comprising an absorbing core intermediate top and
coating layers. The absorbing core comprises three or more
longitudinally extending absorbing panels that are substantially
independent from each other, being separated by channels. The
top layer is sealed to the coating layer in the channels between
the absorbing panels. According to appellant,
[A] sanitary napkin having an odd number of panels, in
this case either 3 or 5 absorbing panels allows a
center panel to maintain good fit to a wearer's body in
use, while allowing the adjacent panels to pivot and
conform to the space between the wearer's legs in use"
[page 2 of Brief, last sentence].
Appealed claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
being anticipated by Abuto. Claims 2, 5-11 and 14-17 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Abuto in view of Pierce.
Appellant submits at page 3 of the Brief that the appealed
claims, as separately rejected, stand or fall together. With
respect to the § 103 rejection, appellant simply states at page 6
of the Brief that appellant respectfully disagrees with this
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