Appeal No. 2006-2895 Page 7
Application No. 09/971,469
art or common knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art that would have led to
the modification.
In an attempt to further articulate his obviousness finding, the examiner
found that “[o]ne of ordinary skill in the manufacturing industry of packaging
materials would easily recognize the advantage of reducing the number of cutting
steps during a process as a simple expedient.” Supp. Answer, p. 7. The examiner
provided no evidentiary support for this purported advantage, and based on the
teachings of Anderson to start with a pre-cut blank, we find that one having
ordinary skill in the art would not have been motivated, absent hindsight, to start
with uncut carton sheets.
The examiner further found that “the invention to Anderson is precisely
engineered to accommodate for a redundancy cutting procedure to insure cutting
through both layers takes place. Without such redundancy the cutting of only the
reinforcing layer would not permit the subsequent folding process to occur.” Supp.
Answer, p. 7. We do not see any teaching or suggestion in Anderson for using the
knives (447, 453) for redundancy cutting of the carton blank, nor does the
examiner point to any such teaching or suggestion.
The examiner further argued that there is implicit motivation for the
construction as taught by Anderson which would result in cutting the carton sheet
35 because Anderson is directly concerned with severing the material to allow the
subsequent folding/erecting operation to take place for a range of differently
dimensioned blanks, and because the knives extend to the depth of the thickness of
the entire blank. Supp. Answer, pp. 8, 9. The examiner further explained that the
cutting step of Anderson performs the same function as the appellants’ cutting step,
viz, for providing a flap in the carton blank. Supp. Answer, pp. 10.
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