Appeal 2007-1525
Application 10/664,628
Claims 1 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Gstrein in view of Hagfors and further in view of either
Lundström ‘588 or Lundström ‘643 or alternatively over Hagsfors in view of
Lundström ‘588 or Lundström ‘643; and claims 3 and 7 are correspondingly
rejected over the aforementioned references and further in view of
Valentine.
The sole issue raised by this appeal is described by Appellant as
follows:
No separate argument is being made for the dependent
claims. All of the rejections depend on Hagfors, and the
dispositive issue in this case is whether or not Hagfors teaches
that the average length of the protruding parts of fibers
protruding from the web-contacting surface of an elastic section
should be between 0.01 and 3 mm.
(Appeal Br. 9).
Concerning this issue, the Examiner correctly finds that Hagfors
discloses grinding the surface of a fiber-containing polymer matrix to
thereby obtain a surface with fibers thereon having a certain micro-
roughness (Hagfors, col. 1, l. 57 - col. 2, l. 10) (Answer 7).
Appellant uses a corresponding technique of grinding the surface of a
fiber-containing elastic section to thereby obtain protruding fibers having an
average length within the here-claimed range (Specification 8, ¶ [0040] and
12, ¶ [0054]).
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