Appeal No. 2005-0361
Application 10/252,177
The specification in the instant application describes the
appellant’s unitary composite air bag cover (10, 110) as
comprising (1) a one-piece thermoplastic elastomeric body (16,
118) including a front panel (20, 122), and (2) a one-piece
thermoplastic outer layer (30, 132) bonded to the front panel of
the one-piece thermoplastic elastomeric body by diffusion.
Appealed claims 18 through 24, however, recite methods of making
a unitary composite air bag wherein the body and the front panel
are set forth as separate pieces. For example, independent
claims 18, 23 and 24 define the body as having “a contact surface
layer that contacts substantially an entire bottom contact
surface of a front panel of the cover,” and further recite a
molecular concentration gradient “formed at an interface between
the first and second plastics comprising the body contact surface
layer and the front panel bottom contact surface.” In addition,
claim 24 ambiguously refers to “an outer layer of the air bag
cover” without any indication as to how this outer layer relates
to the body and front panel. In the same vein, dependent claims
19 and 20 contradict parent claim 18 by respectively reciting
that the second plastic forms a “one-piece outer layer” and that
the body “includes the front panel.” Finally, the term “the
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