Appeal No. 2006-0544 Παγε 5
Application No. 10/159,076
mechanical handling, as claimed by appellants, merely requires engagement of a
mechanical fastener, as opposed to using a chemical fastener.
The difficulty we have with the obviousness position of the examiner is that the
examiner has not fairly established that the problems associated with prior methods of
manufacturing pre-fastened garments as reported at page 1 of appellants’ specification
were recognized in the prior art so as to be utilized as motivation to somehow apply the
tensioning step employed in placing a diaper about a wearer of Siebers in a pre-
fastened diaper manufacturing method, as here claimed. Moreover, even if those
problems were well-known to one of ordinary skill in the art of manufacturing pre-
fastened garments, the examiner has not established that one of ordinary skill in the art
would have found the here claimed mechanical handling of the garment, after formation
of a seam, as an obvious solution to that manufacturing problem. From our
perspective, the teachings of Siebers respecting manual manipulation in placing a
garment about a wearer, with or without the additional teachings of Matsushita have not
been shown by the examiner to address the problem that appellants faced in the
manufacture of a pre-fastened garment, much less the solution for that problem set forth
in the claims before us.
In this regard, we are in full agreement with appellants (see pages 1-3 of the
reply brief) that “mechanically handling the garment ...” as recited in the appealed
claims does not encompass manual manipulation as asserted by the examiner. As
aptly explained by appellants, the claim term “mechanically” modifies the claim term
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