Appeal No. 2005-2649
Application No. 09/690,377
an open end that allows the pheromone to be released by evaporation from an
atmospheric or air interface with the liquid exposed at or near the open end of the tube.
Indeed, any escape of the pheromone from the dispenser of Coplan prior to cutting of
the tubes would be antithetical to the entire teaching of this patent.
Nor do we find in Coplan any teaching or suggestion of the step of fusing the tubes
at predetermined points by heating under pressure “to connect the tubes to each other
and to seal each tube at the points,” as set forth in claim 9 on appeal. In each instance
in Coplan, the tubes are adhesively affixed to a backing member (Figs. 14-16) or
embossed from a flat sheet that is then adhered to a base sheet (Figs. 12-13) to define
the capillary tubes. The fusing or heat sealing that takes place in Coplan is applied to
seal each tube at selected points (49 or 70) to define closed sections of tubing (e.g., 72)
that will each contain an amount of pheromone sealed therein, not to connect the tubes
to each other.
As for Sakurada, the examiner indicates on page 6 of the answer that this patent
is utilized only to show the teaching of pulling apart a central portion of adjacent
dispensing tubes. However, from our perspective, the pheromone-dispenser taught in
Sakurada is much closer to the dispenser described in the present application than is
that of Coplan. See the dispenser (18) in Figure 1 of Sakurada and the description of
Example 13 in column 17, line 56+. However, it is clear to us that neither Coplan nor
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