Appeal 2006-2949
Application 10/012,768
waste can be mechanically shredded to obtain freed recycled fibers (col. 1,
ll. 9-25 and 41-44). Milding would have disclosed to one of ordinary skill in
this art that recycled fibers can be used alone and with new fibers to prepare
hydroentangled fiber webs useful as compact absorbent material. Milding
would have further disclosed that the mechanically recycled fibers can be,
among others, synthetic fibers, such as thermoplastic fibers, and pulp fibers
obtained by mechanically shredding nonwoven and textile waste, which may
partly be in the form of flocks. See Milding, e.g., col. 1, l. 58, to col. 3, l. 17.
We find substantial evidence in the combined teachings of Adam and
Milding to support the Examiner’s position. In comparing claim 1, as we
have interpreted this claim above, with the combined teachings of Adam and
Milding, we determine that one of ordinary skill in this art would have used
Milding’s mechanically recycled pulp fibers, which can be used to prepare
hydroentangled nonwoven fabrics, as the recycled pulp fibers used by Adam
in order to prepare hydroentangled nonwoven fabrics that reasonably appear
to be identical or substantially identical to the claimed hydroentangled
nonwoven fabrics. In our view, the disclosure in Milding alone would have
described hydroentangled nonwoven fabrics prepared from any manner of
mechanically recycled fibers, with and without new fibers, which can be
used as an absorbent, such as a wipe, the reference hydroentangled
nonwoven fabrics thus reasonably appearing to be identical or substantially
identical to the claimed hydroentangled nonwoven fabrics.
Indeed, the Examiner points out and we have found (see above p. 4),
the mechanical shredding of fibers suspended in a liquid in the hydraulic
fabric shredding process disclosed by Appellants includes a mechanical
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