Appeal 2007-1015
Application 10/011,088
It follows that we shall affirm the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
claims 2, 7-18, 26, 27, 29, and 30 over Blenke in view of Widlund, on this
record.
§ 103(a) Rejections over Blenke in view of Widlund and Newkirk
Concerning rejected dependent claims 25 and 28, Appellants rely on
their arguments as made against the rejection of independent claim 2 (Reply
Br. 6). Accordingly, as we find these arguments unpersuasive for reasons
set forth above, we shall sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
claims 25 and 28 over Blenke in view of Widlund and Newkirk.
Concerning rejected claims 31-33 and 36-38, Appellants argue the
claims together as a group. Thus, we select claim 31 as the representative
claim on which we decide this appeal as to these rejected claims.
Claim 31 additionally requires that at least one of the leg elastic
members of the absorbent article is an elastic film material.
Regarding this claimed feature, Newkirk discloses an elastic layer of a
nonwoven fabric that can comprise an elastic film material, including several
polymeric materials that can be used in forming such a film, with the elastic
film being described as being useful in making a composite fabric suitable
for use in diapers (Newkirk, col. 1, ll. 18-22; col. 1, l. 55- col. 2, l. 22; and
col. 5, ll. 13-38). Given this additional disclosure of Newkirk, the Examiner
takes the position that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art at the time of the invention to employ an elastic film material in at
least one of the leg elastic members of the absorbent article of Blenke
(Answer 10-11).
In addition to Appellants’ arguments respecting the chassis
longitudinal side straight edges, which we found unconvincing as set forth
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