Appeal 2007-0061
Application 09/531,978
With regard to the Examiner’s claim interpretation, we agree with
Appellants that it was in error. The claim is directed to an adhesive
containing labelstock. As evidenced by Appellants’ Specification and the
prior art, labelstock is understood by those in the art as a running length of
stock material including film and adhesive on a release liner, for instance, in
roll form like a roll of tape. From the labelstock, labels are die-cut, waste
material stripped away from the liner, and labels delivered by the liner to a
dispensing point (Specification 30:25-32:14). There is a definite machine or
lengthwise direction and cross or widthwise direction to labelstock.
Nagura’s use of the terminology lengthwise and widthwise also illustrates
that those in the art understand these terms to refer to specific directions in
the film. Nagura would not have used such terminology if it were not
descriptive in the context of the imitation paper Nagura seeks to improve.
The Examiner did not reasonably interpret claim 56. Based upon the
proper interpretation of the claim, Nagura contains no sufficiently specific
description constituting an anticipation of the claimed subject matter. The
only specific disclosure in Nagura of tensile modulii in different directions is
in the examples, but in each case the lengthwise (machine direction) tensile
modulus (Young’s modulus) is lower than the widthwise (cross direction)
modulus, i.e., it is the opposite of what is claimed, and in each case the
widthwise modulus is higher than the claimed 150,000 psi (105 kg/mm2).
However, the obviousness analysis of the Examiner does not stand on
the same footing as the anticipation analysis. Nagura does not specify any
limits on either the orientation or modulus levels in the lengthwise direction
(MD) or widthwise direction (CD) of the multilayer film. What Nagura
discloses is a multilayer film made of oriented film 1 and oriented film 2
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