Appeal No. 2006-2538 Page 4
Application No. 10/140,692
2. Obviousness
The examiner rejected claims 1-16 and 21-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious
in view of Mehaffy1 and Takigawa.2 The examiner separately rejected claims 1-16 and
21-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious in view of either Paul3 or Haner,4 combined
with Takigawa. Both rejections rely on the same rationale, so we will consider them
together.
The examiner cited the primary references (Mehaffy, Paul, and Haner) for their
disclosure of hot melt adhesives comprising an adhesive polymer and a tackifier; the
examiner noted that each of the references discloses that the tackifier could be a
phenolic modified terpene or a phenolic modified rosin, or (according to Paul and
Haner) a mixture of the two. See the Examiner’s Answer, pages 3 and 5.
The examiner acknowledged that none of the primary references teach a
modified rosin-terpene, but cited Takigawa as suggesting this limitation. The examiner
noted that “Takigawa teaches an adhesive comprising a phenolic modified rosin-terpene
tackifier, which results in excellent balance among various properties including
adhesiveness, holding powder [sic, power] and tack, and excellent warpage resistance
(see abstract).” Examiner’s Answer, page 3. The examiner concluded that
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time
the invention was made, to have employed a phenolic modified rosin-
terpene tackifier, as taught by Takigawa, in the adhesive of Mehaffy, for
the purpose of improving balance among adhesiveness, tackiness, and
warpage resistance.
1 Mehaffy et al., U.S. Patent 6,117,945, issued Sept. 12, 2000
2 Takigawa et al., JP 07-082541, published March 28, 1995
3 Paul et al., U.S. Patent 5,685,758, issued Nov. 11, 1997
4 Haner et al., U.S. Patent 6,593,407, issued July 15, 2003 (application filed Feb. 6, 2001)
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