Appeal 2007-0947
Application 10/701,039
Appellants present a separate substantive argument only for claim 10.
Accordingly, claims 1-9 and 11-19 stand or fall together, and, with the
exception of claim 10, we will limit our consideration to the rejection of
claim 1. Appellants state they will file a terminal disclaimer to resolve the
double patenting rejection.
We have thoroughly reviewed each of Appellants' arguments for
patentability. However, we concur with the Examiner that the claimed
subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
within the meaning of § 103 in view of the applied prior art. Accordingly,
we will sustain the Examiner's rejections to the extent they are based upon
§ 103.
Wilbur, like Appellants, discloses a storage wrap material comprising
a sheet material having both adhesive and a plurality of protrusions on a first
side of the sheet material. Although we do not find that Wilbur provides a
clear description of the protrusions comprising from about 30% to about
70% by area of the sheet material within the meaning of § 102, we fully
concur with the Examiner that it would have been a matter of obviousness
for one of ordinary skill in the art to construct the sheet material of Wilbur
having at least 30% of the area comprising protrusions. Manifestly, the
sheet material depicted in Wilbur's drawings has protrusions on at least 25%
of its area, which percentage is sufficiently close to the claimed "about 30%"
to render the claimed amount prima facie obvious. Moreover, we agree with
the Examiner that it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the
art to optimize the amount of area of sheet material to be covered with
adhesive and protrusions to maximize the degree of bonding when the sheet
material is used as a wrapper or envelope (see page 1, col. 2, ll. 34-37). We
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