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). 6Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
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