Appeal 2006-3080
Application 10/336,954
The references set forth below are relied upon by the Examiner in the
§ 102 and § 103 rejections before us:
Van Erden US 4,925,316 May 15, 1990
Strand US 6,360,513 B1 Mar. 26, 2002
Claims 10 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Strand.
All of the claims on appeal are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Van Erden in view of Strand.
OPINION
For the reasons set forth in the Answer and below, we will sustain
each of these rejections.
The Examiner finds that claims 10 and 11 are anticipated by the
Figure 17 disclosure of Strand (Final Office Action, 2). The Appellants
point out that the barrier film (i.e., sealing strip) of Strand's Figure 17
embodiment is attached to the zipper flanges and argues that such an
arrangement does not satisfy the claim 10 requirement for "a sealing strip
with said package joined to said first and second walls below said first and
second lines …" (Br. 4-5). In response, the Examiner explains that this
claim requirement is satisfied because Strand's barrier film (i.e., sealing
strip) is indirectly joined to the first and second walls via the zipper flanges
and because the upper most joint line between the barrier film and zipper
flanges is below the uppermost joint line between the flanges and package
walls (Answer 3-4).
During examination, claims are to be given their broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the specification. In re Am. Acad. Of Sci.
Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364, 70 USPQ2d 1827, 1830 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013