Appeal No. 2005-2487
Application 08/900,254
Relying on Naruo’s disclosure of the advantages of a pleat-type filter cartridge
including effective filtration rates being increased, (Naruo, column 1, lines 23-29) the
examiner concluded that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at
the time the invention was made to (4d) form a filter sheet including spacers.
(Examiner’s Answer, page 5, lines 1-8). Whether or not these “pleats” are within the
scope of “spacers” is waived issue #1. The appellant has not challenged this finding.
VI. The Appellant’s Arguments
The appellant argues that the combination of references fails to teach or suggest
“the step of calendering the single fibrous web between non-heated profiled calender
rolls in a single calendering step without subsequent re-heating” (Appeal Brief, page 8,
lines 26-28).
The appellant points to the various examples in Yamamoto (17-23) which use
heated rollers, and urges that a subsequent reheating step may only be avoided if the
roller are preheated. (Appeal Brief, page 9, lines 5-22).
This argument misses the point of the rejection – to calender and set a non-
woven web or sheet, the examiner has observed that one of ordinary skill in the art
would have known that the fibers must be softened, or activated. That heat can be
supplied by one of two ways – by preheating the web, or heating the web through a
roller. The choices in accomplishing this are severely limited (A or B)(Examiner’s
Answer, page 8, lines 1-2). The examiner has found that these methods are well-known
to the artisan, and supported his position with four references relating to binder fibers
(Thornton, col. 1, lines 45-57)(fiber web preheated; unheated rollers); (DE ‘053,
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