Appeal No. 2005-0263
Application No. 10/314,766
percent of the bar element. This appealed subject matter is
adequately illustrated by independent claim 1 which reads as
follows:
1. An economical soap bar element for minimizing the amount
of soap remaining on the bar after a few uses, comprising a non-
soap central core and a soap shell surrounding said non-soap core
in at least two dimensions, wherein said non-soap core occupies
at least about 75 volume percent of said bar element.
The references set forth below are relied upon by the
examiner as evidence of obviousness:
Allen 3,796,665 Mar. 12, 1974
Hadley et al. (Hadley) 3,969,256 Jul. 13, 1976
Di Giovanna 4,308,157 Dec. 29, 1981
Claims 1 and 4-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Hadley.
Claims 1 and 4-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over either Allen or Di Giovanna.
For a complete exposition of the opposing viewpoints
expressed by the appellant and by the examiner concerning the
above noted rejections, we refer to the brief and to the answer
as well as the Office action mailed January 20, 2004.
As a preliminary matter, we observe that, in the “Grouping
of Claims” section of the brief (i.e., see pages 4-5), the
appellant indicates that the claims do not stand or fall
2
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