Appeal No. 2006-1779
Application No. 10/249,810
film is suitable for use on Healy’s bottom fill bag (brief, pp. 13-14). This argument
overlooks the disclosure by Takashi (para. [0054]; Figure 20) of an embodiment of
the Takashi bag designed to be filled through the bottom 20 of the bag 1, with
reference numerals 5a and 5b denoting respectively the bottom area and top area to
be sealed after filling the bag, and is therefore unpersuasive. The rejection of claim
5 as being unpatentable over Takashi in view of Healy is sustained.
We will not, however, sustain the rejection of claim 10, or claims 11-13 and
15-17 depending therefrom, as being unpatentable over Takashi and Healy.
Simply stated, the examiner’s position, as articulated in the sentence bridging
pages 3 and 4 of the answer, to the effect that Takashi’s gussets meet the recitation
of the appellants’ “cutouts” to the degree that the Takashi cutouts have been cut
from a continuous tube and are located below the first and second profile strips and
above the lower edge of the first and second connecting flaps, is untenable. We,
like appellants, observe that claim 10 recites that the gussets “have a cutout” and
not that the gussets are “cutouts.” While it is true that appellants’ specification is
lacking with respect to any comprehensible illustration or detailed description of
the “cutouts,” one of ordinary skill in the art would understand a “cutout” in a
structure, such as a gusset, to be some sort of recess or discontinuity in a peripheral
edge of the structure and Takashi gives no indication of any such feature in the
gussets 4.
CONCLUSION
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