Ex Parte Schneider et al - Page 10



               Appeal No. 2006-1232                                                                         
               Application No. 09/761,500                                                                   

               14 and argue there is nothing in the prior art to teach the combination of                   
               Ausnit and Thomas (Br. 7).                                                                   
                      That Thomas’ pocket is formed by upstanding panels 36, 38 thermally                   
               fused to body panels 12, 14 rather than unitarily formed as one piece with                   
               the body panels is of no moment.  Appellants’ claims do not require one-                     
               piece construction of the walls and wall segments, as explained more fully                   
               below.  In any event, Ausnit does disclose unitary one-piece formation of the                
               walls and the wall segments forming the pocket.  The differences in panel                    
               construction between Ausnit and Thomas are not of such a nature as to have                   
               discouraged the substitution of Ausnit’s perforations 54 with a peelable seal                
               at 68, an art-recognized equivalent to the perforations, as evidenced by                     
               Thomas.                                                                                      
                      For the reasons discussed above, Appellants’ arguments fail to                        
               persuade us that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-4 as being                         
               unpatentable over Ausnit in view of Thomas.  The rejection is sustained.                     

               The Thomas rejection                                                                         
                      We turn finally to the rejection of claims 1-4 as being unpatentable                  
               over Thomas.  The examiner finds that Thomas discloses all the features                      
               claimed except for the wall segments (upstanding panels 36, 38) being                        
               formed from package walls 12, 14 (Answer 5).  The Examiner contends that                     
               it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the               
               time the invention was made to form the wall segments of Thomas from the                     
                                                    10                                                      



Page:  Previous  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  Next

Last modified: September 9, 2013