Appeal No. 2006-1354
Application No. 10/337,026
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Strand
Claims 13 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Strand.
The examiner states “Fig. 18 of Strand et al. discloses the
claimed invention except for the frangible connection 45 being a
peel seal instead of a structural weakness” (Answer, page 5).
The examiner concludes that:
[i]t would have been obvious to one having
ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to replace the structural
weakness of Strand et al. with a peel seal,
since the Examiner takes Official Notice of
the equivalence of peel seals and structural
weaknesses for their use in the package art
and the selection of any of these known
equivalents to open the sealing strip 16b of
Strand et al. would be within the level of
ordinary skill in the art. [id.]
We note that appellants do not challenge the examiner’s
conclusion of obviousness but instead merely repeat the argument
raised against the anticipatory rejection over Strand (Brief,
paragraph bridging pages 6 and 7). This argument has been
already addressed and found unpersuasive. Thus, we also sustain
this rejection of claim 13 as well as claim 15, which was not
separately argued.
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