Appeal 2006-2120
Application 09/890,863
regarding the rejection under § 112, ¶ 2), the disclosure of the woven fabric
by Weber is not sufficient to “read on” these claims. Contrary to the
Examiner’s argument (Answer 8), the diaphragm and loud-speaker as
claimed are not “defined as the woven fabric itself.” Although a diaphragm
may comprise only a woven fabric, one of ordinary skill in this art would
have recognized that the woven fabric would have a conventional structure,
i.e., the shape and arrangement, as set forth in Figure 6. Similarly, the loud-
speaker as claimed would have the conventional structure as known in this
art. The Examiner has not established that Weber discloses or describes
these limitations of claims 21-24. Therefore we cannot sustain the rejection
of claims 21-24 under § 102(b) over Weber.
C. The Rejection under § 103(a)
The Examiner finds that RD ‘439 discloses that PBO can be used as a
blend in various end uses such as speaker cones, and teaches that PBO has
improved properties over known aramid fibers (Answer 5). The Examiner
applies Weber as discussed above (id.). From these findings, the Examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
to produce blended woven fabrics having PBO as described by Weber and
using those fabrics in any of the end uses disclosed for PBO in RD ‘439
(Answer 6).
As correctly argued by Appellants (Br. 11 and 13; Reply Br. 8), the
Examiner has failed to provide any convincing reason for the combination of
RD ‘439 with Weber to produce the invention as claimed. See In re
Dembiczak, 175 F.3d 994, 999, 50 USPQ2d 1614, 1617 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
The Examiner has failed to provide any convincing reasoning or evidence
why one of ordinary skill in the loud-speaker art would have used the woven
8
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