Appeal 2006-3343
Application 10/372,564
1 The Examiner has also found that Denesuk teaches heavy weight non-
2 woven stabilized non-stretch fabric material for bedding articles. (Id. p. 2, ll.
3 19-20).
4 The Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to one of
5 ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to employ the
6 heavy weight non-woven stabilized non-stretch fabric material as taught by
7 Denesuk in Chamberlain, as the material was known to be suitable. Id. p. 2,
8 l. 21- p. 3, l. 3.
9 The Appellant urges that Chamberlain “teaches only a bed sheet 10
10 formed of conventional fabric material” (Br. p. 8, ll. 10-11) (emphasis in
11 original) whereas the Appellant’s claimed fabric is a disposable contour
12 sheet of non-woven stabilizing interfacing fabric. (Id. p. 8, ll. 12-14).
13 The thrust of this argument appears to be that Chamberlain must be
14 limited to a conventional “bed sheet” material which would thus render the
15 claimed non-woven stabilized interfacing fabric nonobvious because it is not
16 normally used as a bed sheet material. (Id. P. 10, l. 7-9).
17 Prior to addressing the merits of the rejections, we consider the scope
18 and meaning of certain terms that appear in appealed claim 1. Gechter v.
19 Davidson, 116 F.3d 1454, 1457, 1460 n.3, 43 USPQ2d 1030, 1032, 1035 n.3
20 (Fed. Cir. 1997). In proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark
21 Office (PTO), unpatented claims must be interpreted by giving words their
22 broadest reasonable meanings in their ordinary usage, taking into account
23 the written description found in the specification. In re Morris, 127 F.3d
24 1048, 1054, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013