Appeal No. 2005-2131
Application 10/000,254
the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly
suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of
the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.”); In re Siebentritt, 372
F.2d 566, 567-68, 152 USPQ 618, 619 (CCPA 1967) (express suggestion to interchange methods
which achieve the same or similar results is not necessary to establish obviousness).
With respect to the matter of the thickness of the temporary liner sheet encompassed by
appealed claim 1, the examiner relies on the combined teachings of Evans and PFFC in this
respect. We are unconvinced by appellants’ arguments which focus only on PFFC, contending
that this reference merely suggests a non-enabled desideratum in the label and liner arts, and that
the use of a thin liner overcomes certain problems. PFFC would have disclosed that in addition
to the trend in the art to achieve reduced costs noted by several sources as reported in this
reference, according to one source, polypropylene liners were being used which can be silicone-
coated, wherein the polypropylene can be as thin as 1.5 mil, that is, 0.0381 mm (page 2). In this
respect, we find that Evans would have disclosed pressure sensitive adhesive sheet material
which is “a smooth thin planar-rigid polyolefin film having an inseparably-bonded cured
silicone-polymer coating” which can be as thin as 1 mil, as the examiner finds, wherein the
polyolefin base layer can be a polypropylene and can be used as a liner for pressure sensitive
transfer tape that can be laminated to label stock (col. 1., ll. 15-18 and 29-35, col. 2, l. 71, to col.
3, l. 15, and col. 5, ll. 68-71). The examiner finds that this combination of references would have
suggested a liner for labels of a thickness of 1 mil falling within appealed claim 1. Indeed, in the
absence of argument based on the combined teachings of PFFC and Evans, and appellants do
not present any argument with respect to Evans, cf. Keller, 642 F.2d at 426, 208 USPQ at 882
(arguments must be addressed to the combination of references rather than the references
individually), we find that one of ordinary skill in this art would have found an enabling
disclosure in Evans for the thin silicone-coated polypropylene liners described in PFFC, such
liners having a thickness of 1 mil, that is, 0.0254 mm, and thus falling within appealed claim 1.
Appellants do not dispute that Nedblake teaches liners as thin as 0.75 mil, that is,
0.019 mm falling within appealed claim 6. We are not convinced by appellants’ arguments that
Nedblake is inapplicable because it would not have taught using the liners with linerless labels
which have been micro-bridge cut during the laser cutting step disclosed therein. Indeed, we
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