Appeal No. 2005-1207
Application No. 10/126,342 Page 3
persuaded us of reversible error on the part of the examiner.
Accordingly, we will affirm the examiner’s rejection for
substantially the reasons set forth by the examiner in the
answer. We add the following for emphasis and completeness.
Appellants identify two groups of rejected claims and state
that the claims of each group stand or fall together for purposes
of this appeal. See page 2 of the brief. Accordingly, we select
independent claim 10 as the representative claim for the claim
grouping that includes claims 10-12 and 18-20 and independent
claim 13 as the representative claim for the claim grouping that
includes claims 13-17 and 21-23.
Appellants do not dispute that Brooker discloses a meltblown
material (web) product that includes a layer containing meltblown
fibers and particles. As generated by appellants’ arguments, the
central issue before us in assessing the merits of the examiner’s
obviousness rejection of representative claim 10 over the applied
prior art is whether or not the teachings thereof would have
reasonably suggested that the particles of Brooker would
penetrate the surface(s) of the meltblown fiber(s) as maintained
by the examiner.1
1 We note that McFarland is relied upon by the examiner for
establishing the obviousness of using staple fibers in Brooker as
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