Appeal No. 2006-0445
Application 08/977,374
The examiner responds that one of ordinary skill in this art would have taken from the
disclosure of Amberg the teaching to use opaque material on an edge portion of a heat shrinkable
film to heat shrink that portion using infrared radiation without bodily incorporating the edge
structure of Amberg onto the film of Heilman, arguing that it is not necessary to bodily
incorporate the features of Amberg into the structure of Heilman in order to combine the
teachings of Amberg with that of Heilman (answer, page 12). The examiner further points out
that shrinking the top of the film is optional in Heilman, and the grounds of rejection require
only “that the edge portions be made opaque as taught by [Amberg] to allow the use of [infrared]
lights directed only at the edge portions that need to be shrunk” (id., page 14). The examiner
argues that one of ordinary skill in this art would not have been led away from combining
Heilman, Amberg and Anderson to “apply a black coating strip to an area . . . to be heated by
[infrared] radiation, simply because [Anderson] teaches heating of a different area.” (id., page
15). The examiner further argues that Anderson is analogous prior art because the reference “is
also directed to the common problem of the use of [infrared] radiation to heat plastic materials”
(id., page 17).
Appellant replies that “changing the edge portion of Heilman to absorb infrared radiation
directly is not supported by the applied references,” contending that “[n]either Heilman nor
Amberg make any suggestion of a single sheet material with different properties in the center
and the edge” (reply brief, page 2). In this respect, appellant points out that “Amberg
specifically teaches that the center portion 14 and the skirt 15 should be of different materials
([col. 3, ll. 17-33])” which “eliminates the film concept and substitutes a pre-formed two-
piece closure” (id.). Appellant further argues that Anderson is inapplicable because it heats
dark-colored strip 6 to melt thermoplastic film on a portion of a substrate which is not edge 5
thereof, submitting “that if one were to apply the fair teachings of Anderson to Heilman or
Amberg, one would place a black strip on the substrate, i.e., the cup to be sealed” (id., pages 2-
3).
We find substantial evidence in the combined teachings of Heilman and Amberg, with
respect to claims 36 and 41, and in the combined teachings of Heilman, Amberg and Anderson,
with respect to claims 39, 42 and 44, in support of the examiner’s position. We are of the
opinion that, as we found above, Heilman would have taught a transparent heat shrinkable film
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