Appeal No. 2004-1317
Application No. 10/143,377
As acknowledged by appellants in their specification, Wunderlich
discloses a spring roll-packing machine "in which a roll of
disposable wrapping paper is fed along a table and into a
wrapping mechanism whereat spring assemblies are placed upon the
paper and fed into the machine by the paper movement" (page 3 of
specification, last paragraph). Appellants also acknowledge the
following at page 3 of the specification, first paragraph:
For instance, it is known in the art to pack spring
units for use in making mattresses by winding
disposable paper or re-usable hessian around a mandrel
and feeding the spring units successively into the nip
between the growing roll and the traveling web
material. The spring units are compressed as they are
drawn into the roll, and the result is that the roll-
packed springs have a much reduced volume as compared
to conventionally stacked spring units.
Appellants still further acknowledge that U.S. Patent No.
4,669,247 discloses "packing spring units into a roll with a web
of disposable paper or reusable material" (page 3 of
specification, last paragraph).
Accordingly, we find that it is abundantly clear that it was
known in the art to perform the claimed roll-packing step on
spring units, and we therefore find no error in the examiner's
legal conclusion that "it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention, to
include the roll packing method of Wunderlich in the method of
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