Appeal No. 1998-1737
Application No. 08/318,702
We now turn to the § 103 rejections over Hoeschele. We must
agree with appellants that the cited prior art fails to teach or
suggest the claimed storable modular component comprising a solid
strip of latently reactive adhesive disposed on its edge. It was
not until the Supplemental Answer that the examiner addressed
appellants' argument that the claims at issue are directed to a
modular component comprising a solid strip of adhesive, and not
to an adhesive composition. As explained by appellants,
Hoeschele discloses a powder composition, not a solid strip, that
may be coated upon a substrate and heated to form a polyurethane
film. While Hoeschele teaches that the powder composition is
suited for coating techniques, such as fluidized bed, electro-
static spray, powder flow coating and heat-fusion, the examiner
has not established that such techniques would have been suitable
for forming a solid strip on the edge of a modular component.
The examiner's statement that "it would have been obvious to one
having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was
made to place the adhesive composition on the substrate wherever
it was meant to bond to a second material" is no substitute for a
teaching in the prior art that adhesive strips of the type
claimed are formed from latently reactive polyurethane powder
compositions (see page 2 of Supplemental Answer, second
-5-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007