Appeal No. 2005-0485
Application No. 09/303,632
respect to claim 32, and more particularly the foregoing
recitation in the claim, because it
employs a rubber band in the embodiments of FIGS. 9 and
10. Moreover, the cover 34 works in conjunction with a
“partition member” 32 to which the rubber band is
attached to secure the cover 34 or 34'. Accordingly,
it is not even clear that the cover of Yanagisawa would
stay in place on the keyboard or a portion thereof
without the rubber bands [main brief, page 5].
The appellants’ position here is not well taken. As pointed
out above, claim 32 is an open “comprising” claim and thus does
not exclude the presence of other elements such as Yanagisawa’s
rubber band.
As for the admitted failure of Yanagisawa to meet the
“plastic” limitation in claim 32, Adair discloses a sterile
enclosure 12a for a laptop computer 60 (see Figure 5) used in
surgical environments. The enclosure comprises a substantially
transparent, flexible and liquid/gas impermeable plastic such as
polyurethane, polyolefins, laminated plastic films or the like
forming a body having an open end that may be sealed by tape or
adhesive 18a.
The examiner’s conclusion that Adair would have suggested
making Yanagisawa’s cover of plastic is well founded, with the
requisite motivation found in Adair’s description of various
plastics as having properties, e.g., transparency, flexibility
8
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