Appeal 2006-1924
Application 09/954,506
After all, one of ordinary skill in the art would have looked to the prior art
for conventional techniques for obtaining the multiple webs (136) of Rajala
and, in so doing, would have recognized that splitting of a single web as
taught by Roessler and/or Justmann would be one such available technique
for securing separate streams of fastener material. As for the fastener
orientation argument, we note that Rajala teaches/suggests a fastener supply
method involving rotation of the fastener members, as claimed. In this
regard, we note that Appellants (Reply Br 6-7) seemingly limit their
arguments to attacking the Examiner’s rejection as missing a persuasive
rationale for combining the applied references’ teachings and do not
persuasively argue that all of the claimed limitations would not have been
taught by the combined references’ teachings. However, Appellants’
arguments concerning the lack of a suggestion to combine the references as
advanced by the Examiner are not persuasive for reasons set forth above and
in the Answer. Consequently, we shall sustain the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of claims 32, 34-40, 48 and 49 over Rajala taken with Roessler
and/or Justmann, on this record.
The Examiner has separately rejected claims 41 and 45 under § 103(a)
as obvious over the same combination of references employed in rejecting
claim 32 (Rajala taken with Roessler and/or Justmann) further in view of
Widlund. As pointed out in footnote 3 (Br. 11), Appellants’ only argument
against this separate rejection of these dependent claims rests on their
patentability argument for claim 32. It follows that, on this record, we will
also sustain the separate obviousness rejection of claims 41 and 45, as
presented in the final Office action mailed April 06, 2005.
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