Appeal No. 2006-1309
Application No. 09/166,625
blended fabrics, . . .” (page 1, fourth paragraph).
Accordingly, we are convinced that the examiner has properly
concluded that it would have been obvious for one of ordinary
skill in the art to include natural fibers or rayon in the
polypropylene layer of Garland, or to completely substitute
natural fibers or rayon for the polypropylene of Garland in the
non-woven fabric layer. It must be emphasized that the claims
on appeal are sufficiently broad to encompass a non-woven fabric
layer including small amounts of natural fibers or rayon and a
predominant amount of other fabric material, such as the
polypropylene of Garland. Hence, adding only minor amounts of
natural fiber or rayon to the polypropylene layer of Garland
would meet the requirements of appellant’s first layer of non-
woven fabric material. We note that appellant’s specification
attaches no criticality to the particular natural fiber used.
A main argument advanced by appellant is that Garland does
not teach a thickness for the non-woven fabric layer in the
claimed range of 1 to 2 mils. Garland describes the thickness
of the non-woven layer as in the range of 0.005 to 0.002 mils.
However, the examiner has submitted extensive calculations to
demonstrate that the disclosed thickness of Garland’s non-woven
layer is an obvious error, and that the non-woven layer of
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