Appeal No. 2006-1780
Application No. 10/292,076
However, the examiner relies upon the pertinent disclosure of
Hamilton at page 7, lines 29 et seq. which read as follows:
When designing storage wrap materials in accordance with the
present invention, it may be desirable to tailor the
particular choice of adhesive agent so as to provide either
a permanent bond or a releasable bond as desired for a
particular application. Where a permanent bond is desired,
opening of the wrap or enclosed container for access to the
item(s) therein requires destruction of the storage wrap
and/or the container. Releasable bonds, on the other hand,
provide access to the wrapped item(s) by permitting
separation of the wrap from itself or the container at the
bond site without destruction. Moreover, depending upon the
activation mechanism employed in the design of the storage
wrap material, the releasable bond may additionally be
refastenable if sufficient adhesive character remains after
the initial activation/bonding/release cycle.
Accordingly, based on this disclosure of Hamilton, we fully
concur with the examiner that one of ordinary skill in the art
would have found it obvious to employ sections of both permanent
and releasable bonds on the superimposed edges of the bag in
order to attain a balance of bond strength resulting from the
permanent bond as well as the advantages of a releasable bond
described by Hamilton. We note that appellants’ specification
attaches no particular significance or advantage to having no
more than about fifty percent of the superimposed edges of the
bag permanently sealed. Indeed, appellants’ specification
undermines the criticality of the claim limitation by stating
that “[i]t should be understood that the permanently sealed
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007