Appeal No. 2005-1328 Application No. 09/734,792 The examiner relies upon the following references as evidence of obviousness: Limousin 4,586,312 May 06, 1986 Lundquist et al. (Lundquist) 4,720,410 Jan. 19, 1988 Tsuchiya 5,067,612 Nov. 26, 1991 Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a combination comprising two or more packages that are shrink wrapped to form a unit wherein one of the films of the shrink wrapping is opaque while another film is clear. According to appellants’ specification, “[t]he opaque film is sufficiently resistant to the transmission of light such that UPC bar codes present on the individual packages cannot be read through the film by bar code reading machines” (page 5, second paragraph). The specification explains that “use of the opaque film prevents the bar code reading machine from inadvertently reading one of the bar codes for the individual packages and thereby falsely crediting the manufacturer with shipment only of an individual package rather than the multi-package unit” (id.). Appealed claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15-17, 22, 24, 25, 27 and 28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Limousin in view of Lundquist. Claims 2, 5, 8, 9, 11 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being 2Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007