Appeal No. 2004-2012 Page 5
Application No. 09/183,087
Claim 1 requires that there be a pair of first side barrier cuffs adjacent the side
edges of the diaper and extending longitudinally “to said longitudinally opposite ends of
said diaper” and a pair of second side barrier cuffs extending parallel to the first barrier
cuffs “to locations spaced apart inwardly of said longitudinally opposite ends of said
diaper.” Uni-Charm discloses first (15) and second (16) side barrier cuffs but, as can be
seen in Figure 2, both are the same length and extend to the longitudinally opposite
ends of the diaper, and therefore Uni-Charm fails to disclose or teach that the inner cuff
does not extend to the ends of the diaper. Daio is the only other reference that
discloses two sets of parallel longitudinally extending cuffs, but as was the case in Uni-
Charm, the first cuffs (20) and the second cuffs (10) are of the same length and both
extend to the ends of the diaper (see Figure 2).
Recognizing this deficiency in the teachings of the applied references, the
examiner advances the following theory: (1) It was known in the art to provide cuffs that
extend the entire length of a diaper and for the length of a conventional diaper to be 450
mm, as evidenced by Lawson and Robertson, and thus one of ordinary skill in the art
would have appreciated that it would have been obvious to make the Uni-Charm diaper
of such a length. (2) It then follows that the Uni-Charm first (outer) cuff 15, which is
shown in Figure 2 as extending the full length of the diaper, also would have a length of
450mm. (3) The statement on page 11 of Uni-Charm that the longitudinal dimension of
the second (inner) cuff 16 “may be less than 100mm” teaches that the second cuff is of
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